SQL for Top Categories | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a query to find the top three performing categories in a sales dataset.

Use the provided categories and sales tables. Performance is measured by total sale amount. Include categories with no matching sales as zero, and exclude sales that cannot be associated with a category.

Output

Return one row per category with category_name and total_sales.
Return only the three highest totals.
Order by total_sales descending, then category_name ascending to break ties.

Schema

categories

Column	Type	Description
category_idPK	INT	Unique category identifier
category_name	VARCHAR(100)	Category name

sales

Column	Type	Description
sale_idPK	INT	Unique sale identifier
category_id	INT	Category associated with the sale
sale_amount	NUMERIC(12,2)	Amount recorded for the sale

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Problem