Question

If I have a User table, like this:

UserId    Name
------    ----
1         Jim
2         Mark

and an Order table like this:

OrderId    UserId
-------    ------
1          1
2          1
3          1
4          2

How can I just take any single Order of Jim’s? It doesn’t matter which, I just want one.

I have this:

Joining isn’t the issue, it’s just limiting it to one result as there are obviously 3.

SELECT * FROM User u
LEFT OUTER JOIN Order o on u.UserId = o.UserId

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This will select the first matched row:

SELECT TOP 1 * FROM User u 
LEFT OUTER JOIN Order o ON u.UserID = o.UserID

If you know which user you’re looking for ahead of time, you can add that to the WHERE clause:

WHERE u.UserID = @userID

And, if you ever need to make sure you’re getting the First, or Most Recent order, you can use :

ORDER BY o.OrderID ASC/DESC