Question

I want to get distinct Category and order there result by curdate column.

select distinct(Category)'Category' from sizes   order by curdate desc

But this simple query is generating errors.

ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if SELECT DISTINCT is specified.

Answer 1

I’m afraid you have the same constraint for SELECT DISTINCT as for GROUP BY clauses: namely, you cannot make use of a field that’s not declared in the fields list, because it simply doesn’t know which curdate to use when sorting in case there are several rows with different curdate values for the same Category.

EDIT: try something like:

SELECT Category FROM sizes GROUP BY Category ORDER BY MAX(curdate) DESC

Replace MAX with MIN or whatever suits you.

EDIT2: In this case, MAX(curdate) doesn’t even have to be present in the field list since it’s used in an aggregate function.