Question

Consider the following query:

SELECT domain, done FROM tasks WHERE 1 GROUP BY domain

Obviously I can get it to return the max value of “done” with MAX(done), but how do i get it to return that whole row?

In the situation I’m in, I have a table with the following rows:

domain = somedomain.com, done = 12:27:39, somecolumn = pink
domain = somedomain.com, done = 13:27:39, somecolumn = blue
domain = somedomain.com, done = 14:27:39, somecolumn = orange
domain = anotherdomain.com, done = 07:27:39, somecolumn = orange
domain = anotherdomain.com, done = 09:27:39, somecolumn = pie

Using the query above, it returns the following 2 rows:

domain = somedomain.com, done = 13:27:39, somecolumn = blue
domain = anotherdomain.com, done = 09:27:39, somecolumn = pie

I need to return these 2 rows:

domain = somedomain.com, done = 14:27:39, somecolumn = blue
domain = anotherdomain.com, done = 09:27:39, somecolumn = pie

Appreciate the help :).

Answer 1

Easiest one:

SELECT done,somecolumn FROM tasks ORDER BY done DESC LIMIT 1;

For more elaborate queries, left joins or subqueries may be needed, but this one is pretty straight forward.

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For the heck of it, if you indeed need other data:

(1) NOT EXISTS:

 SELECT a.*
 FROM tasks a
 WHERE NOT EXISTS(
    SELECT * FROM tasks b
    WHERE b.domain = a.domain AND b.done > a.done);

(2) LEFT JOIN

 SELECT a.*
 FROM tasks a
 LEFT JOIN tasks b
 ON b.domain = a.domain AND b.done > a.done
 WHERE b.id IS NULL;

(3) ROWNUMBER() like:

SELECT numbered.*
FROM (
    SELECT 
        @row := IF(@old_domain = domain,@row + 1,1) as rownumber,
        @old_domain := domain as domain,
        done,
        somecolumn
    FROM tasks
    JOIN (SELECT @old_domain:=0,@row:=0) void
    ORDER BY domain ASC, done DESC
) numbered
WHERE numbered.rownumber = 1;

Which one will give you better performance hugely depends on the dataset, so I’d just test those.