Question

I want to select the first row in a table, order by time (ascending), then delete that row. I don’t want to use two queries since there’s a possibility that another client could select that row before it gets deleted (there will be several machines connected at once from different networks).

I was thinking I could do something like

SELECT * FROM `mytable` ORDER BY `time` LIMIT 1;
    DELETE FROM `mytable` ORDER BY `time` LIMIT 1

…but I got an error:

You have an error in your SQL syntax;
check the manual that corresponds to
your MySQL server version for the
right syntax to use near ‘; DELETE *
FROM pending ORDER BY time LIMIT
1′ at line 1

What’s the best way to do this? Thanks.

Answer 1

Re your error message (different than in your question):

DELETE * FROM pending ORDER BY time LIMIT 1

Looks like an error in your syntax. Try removing the *. That is,

DELETE FROM pending ORDER BY time LIMIT 1

Should work fine.