Question

I have no idea what the following query means as I do not have any exposure to MS Access. I need to convert it into MySQL and I can’t figure out what does the LAST() does

SELECT 
    Containers.Container_No, 
    Max(Containers.LastOfContainer_Date), 
    Max(Containers.LastOfContainer_Time), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfETD), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfContainer_Status), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfPickup_From), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfPickup_To), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfConsignee_Name), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfContract_No), 
    Last(Containers.LastOfSeaLNo) 
FROM 
    Containers 
WHERE 
    Containers.Customer_Name = 'value here"
AND  
    Containers.LastOfContainer_Date >='Date here' 
AND 
    Containers.LastOfContainer_Date <= 'Date here' 
GROUP BY 
    Containers.Container_No

Can some one explain me what does this LAST() actually do?
UPDATE
It seems the query can be changed to following:

SELECT
        Containers.Container_No,
        Max(Containers.LastOfContainer_Date),
        Max(Containers.LastOfContainer_Time),
        Containers.LastOfETD,
        Containers.LastOfContainer_Status,
        Containers.LastOfPickup_From,
        Containers.LastOfPickup_To,
        Containers.LastOfConsignee_Name,
        Containers.LastOfContract_No,
        Containers.LastOfSeaLNo
    FROM
        Containers
    WHERE
        Containers.Customer_Name = '".$customername."'
    AND
        Containers.LastOfContainer_Date >='".$fromdate."'
    AND
        Containers.LastOfContainer_Date <= '".$todate."'
    GROUP BY
        Containers.Container_No
    order by
        Containers.LastOfETD,
        Containers.LastOfContainer_Status,
        Containers.LastOfPickup_From,
        Containers.LastOfPickup_To,
        Containers.LastOfConsignee_Name,
        Containers.LastOfContract_No,
        Containers.LastOfSeaLNo

Answer 1

The Last function returns the last value on a given query, for instance I assume that in the query you are using it would return the data of the last transaction made by that certain customer,
for instance lets say Mike Jagger bought 2things today, he will have 2 transactions with the same date, if you use the last function you would get the latest information that was inserted.

ID    | Date |   Product
1    12/12/2011   socks
2     12/12/2011   shirt

select  last(product)
from buys;

it would output : shirt

BTW to emulate this behavior you might want to use

ORDER BY product DESC LIMIT 1