# difference


The `difference` function calculates the difference between a measure based on one set of partitions and sorts, and a measure based on another. 

The `difference` function is supported for use with analyses based on SPICE and direct query data sets.

## Syntax


The brackets are required. To see which arguments are optional, see the following descriptions.

```
difference
	(
	     measure 
	     ,[ sortorder_field ASC_or_DESC, ... ]
	     ,lookup_index,
	     ,[ partition field, ... ] 
	)
```

## Arguments


 *measure*   
An aggregated measure that you want to see the difference for. 

 *sort order field*   
One or more measures and dimensions that you want to sort the data by, separated by commas. You can specify either ascending (**ASC**) or descending (**DESC**) sort order.   
Each field in the list is enclosed in \$1\$1 (curly braces), if it is more than one word. The entire list is enclosed in [ ] (square brackets).

 *lookup index*   
The lookup index can be positive or negative, indicating a following row in the sort (positive) or a previous row in the sort (negative). The lookup index can be 1–2,147,483,647. For the engines MySQL, MariaDB and Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition, the lookup index is limited to just 1.

 *partition field*   
(Optional) One or more dimensions that you want to partition by, separated by commas.   
Each field in the list is enclosed in \$1\$1 (curly braces), if it is more than one word. The entire list is enclosed in [ ] (square brackets).

## Example


The following example calculates the difference between of `sum({Billed Amount})`, sorted by `Customer Region` ascending, compared to the next row, and partitioned by `Service Line`.

```
difference(
     sum( {Billed Amount} ), 
     [{Customer Region} ASC],
     1,
     [{Service Line}]
)
```

The following example calculates the difference between `Billed Amount` compared to the next line, partitioned by (`[{Customer Region}]`). The fields in the table calculation are in the field wells of the visual.

```
difference(
     sum( {Billed Amount} ), 
     [{Customer Region} ASC],
     1
)
```

The red highlights show how each amount is added ( a \$1 b = c ) to show the difference between amounts a and c. 

![\[alt text not found\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/quick/latest/userguide/images/differenceCalc.png)