# var()

`var(col)` returns the sample variance of the values in the provided column.

Non-numeric values are ignored. Variance requires at least two values to calculate; if the provided column does not have enough numeric values or the column does not exist, `var` will return `null`.

## Returns

A table with one row and one column, called `@q.var`.

## Example

Compute the variance of elapsed time in milliseconds for requests in the **checkout\_api** service, aggregated by **host**.

```python
kubernetes.container_name: "checkout_api"
| stats var(log.%kv.elapsed_ms) by host
```