Question

If i have a table with a column values alpha, azera, beta, brown, charlie, cling

How do i get the values like azera, brown and cling since “al” in alpha comes first “az” in azera.. I started using this in SQL 2005.

Select top 1 columnA from TableA order by ColumnA desc 

It gives me only 1 result but i need to get for each alphabet A B and C.

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Your question is a little unclear but I’m assuming you want the largest (when alphabetically sorted) value for each starting letter. That is, if it were a dictionary you want the last entry for a, the last entry for b, and so on. If so, try:

SELECT MAX(myCol)
FROM myTable
GROUP BY LEFT(myCol,1)

SQL Fiddle