Question

I am building an application in cold fusion which has a SQL Server database connection. I need group records and only return the first in the group. I wrote the following query in coldfusion.

SELECT FIRST(ID)
FROM table
GROUP BY NAME

Which is returning the following error:

[Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver][SQLServer]’first’ is not a recognized built-in function name.

Is the a way use the first function in a coldfusion query?

Is there an alternative way to accomplishment this?

*I do not have direct access to the database. Just a access to the cold fusion data connection

Answer 1

FIRST is not valid in SQL Server (you must be thinking of Access). Maybe you meant:

SELECT NAME, MIN(ID)
FROM dbo.table
GROUP BY NAME;

In SQL Server “Denali” you will be able to use FIRST_VALUE/LAST_VALUE in conjunction with windowing functions.