Question

I’m having trouble getting the latest data out of this.

I have a table with these data:

ItemId, ShipmentId, Date

Items can be shipped many times and a shipment can contain multiple items.
I need to get the latest shipment for every item.

Table looks like this:

11  12 2011-05-13 
11  2  2011-07-01 
12  2  2000-03-02
...

The result should be

11 2 2011-07-01
12 2 2000-03-02

I can’t find a solution to be exclusive.
How can I get the latest shipment for every item?

Answer 1

Assuming you’re working with a database engine that supports ranking functions, use a CTE or subquery to order the results:

;With OrderedItems as (
     select ItemId,ShipmentId,Date,
         ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY ItemId ORDER By Date desc) as rn
     from ItemsTable
)
select * from OrderedItems where rn = 1