Question

Assuming a table like this.

id town_id begin_date

12 2       2011-10-10
23 2       2011-11-10 
43 2       2012-01-01 

now if I do

SELECT id, MAX(begin_date) AS mx
FROM regions

The above query returns the max date but the id is wrong:

id mx
12 2012-01-01

Is this expected?
How can I get it to return the correct id (43, 2012-01-01)

Answer 1

You forgot the GROUP BY clause:

SELECT id, MAX(begin_date) AS mx
FROM regions
GROUP BY 1