What's the difference between RANK() and DENSE_RANK() functions in oracle?

What's the difference between RANK() and DENSE_RANK() functions? How to find out nth salary in the following emptbl table?

DEPTNO  EMPNAME    SAL
------------------------------
10       rrr    10000.00
11       nnn    20000.00
11       mmm    5000.00
12       kkk    30000.00
10       fff    40000.00
10       ddd    40000.00
10       bbb    50000.00
10       ccc    50000.00

If in the table data having nulls, what will happen if I want to find out nth salary?

RANK gives you the ranking within your ordered partition. Ties are assigned the same rank, with the next ranking(s) skipped. So, if you have 3 items at rank 2, the next rank listed would be ranked 5.

DENSE_RANK again gives you the ranking within your ordered partition, but the ranks are consecutive. No ranks are skipped if there are ranks with multiple items.

As for nulls, it depends on the ORDER BY clause. Here is a simple test script you can play with to see what happens:

with q as (
select 10 deptno, 'rrr' empname, 10000.00 sal from dual union all
select 11, 'nnn', 20000.00 from dual union all
select 11, 'mmm', 5000.00 from dual union all
select 12, 'kkk', 30000 from dual union all
select 10, 'fff', 40000 from dual union all
select 10, 'ddd', 40000 from dual union all
select 10, 'bbb', 50000 from dual union all
select 10, 'xxx', null from dual union all
select 10, 'ccc', 50000 from dual)
select empname, deptno, sal
     , rank() over (partition by deptno order by sal nulls first) r
     , dense_rank() over (partition by deptno order by sal nulls first) dr1
     , dense_rank() over (partition by deptno order by sal nulls last) dr2
 from q; 

EMP     DEPTNO        SAL          R        DR1        DR2
--- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
xxx         10                     1          1          4
rrr         10      10000          2          2          1
fff         10      40000          3          3          2
ddd         10      40000          3          3          2
ccc         10      50000          5          4          3
bbb         10      50000          5          4          3
mmm         11       5000          1          1          1
nnn         11      20000          2          2          2
kkk         12      30000          1          1          1

9 rows selected.

Here's a link to a good explanation and some examples.

This article here nicely explains it. Essentially, you can look at it as such:

CREATE TABLE t AS
SELECT 'a' v FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'a'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'a'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'b'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'c'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'c'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'd'   FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 'e'   FROM dual;

SELECT
  v,
  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY v) row_number,
  RANK()       OVER (ORDER BY v) rank,
  DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY v) dense_rank
FROM t
ORDER BY v;

The above will yield:

+---+------------+------+------------+
| V | ROW_NUMBER | RANK | DENSE_RANK |
+---+------------+------+------------+
| a |          1 |    1 |          1 |
| a |          2 |    1 |          1 |
| a |          3 |    1 |          1 |
| b |          4 |    4 |          2 |
| c |          5 |    5 |          3 |
| c |          6 |    5 |          3 |
| d |          7 |    7 |          4 |
| e |          8 |    8 |          5 |
+---+------------+------+------------+

In words

• ROW_NUMBER() attributes a unique value to each row
• RANK() attributes the same row number to the same value, leaving "holes"
• DENSE_RANK() attributes the same row number to the same value, leaving no "holes"

rank() : It is used to rank a record within a group of rows.

dense_rank() : The DENSE_RANK function acts like the RANK function except that it assigns consecutive ranks.

Query -

select 
    ENAME,SAL,RANK() over (order by SAL) RANK
from 
    EMP;

Output -

+--------+------+------+
| ENAME  | SAL  | RANK |
+--------+------+------+
| SMITH  |  800 |    1 |
| JAMES  |  950 |    2 |
| ADAMS  | 1100 |    3 |
| MARTIN | 1250 |    4 |
| WARD   | 1250 |    4 |
| TURNER | 1500 |    6 |
+--------+------+------+

Query -

select 
    ENAME,SAL,dense_rank() over (order by SAL) DEN_RANK
from 
    EMP;

Output -

+--------+------+-----------+
| ENAME  | SAL  |  DEN_RANK |
+--------+------+-----------+
| SMITH  |  800 |         1 |
| JAMES  |  950 |         2 |
| ADAMS  | 1100 |         3 |
| MARTIN | 1250 |         4 |
| WARD   | 1250 |         4 |
| TURNER | 1500 |         5 |
+--------+------+-----------+