Question

I’m hoping there’s a simple way to do this without using a sub-query:

Scenario: You have “TableA” with columns “Key”, “SubKey”, and “Value”. I need to get the “Value” of the MAX(“SubKey”) for a given “Key”.

So if the Table contained the rows:

KEY SUBKEY VALUE
1   1      100
1   2      200
1   3      300

For Key = 1, I need the value 300. I was hoping to do something like this:

SELECT
  VALUE
FROM
  TableA
WHERE
  Key = 1
HAVING
  SubKey = MAX(SubKey)

But that’s a no-go. Is there a way to do this without doing a ‘WHERE SubKey = (subselect for max subkey)’?

Answer 1

Using a self join:

This will return all the values with subkey values that match, in case there are multiples.

SELECT a.value
  FROM TABLE a
  JOIN (SELECT MAX(t.subkey) AS max_subkey
          FROM TABLE t
         WHERE t.key = 1) b ON b.max_subkey = a.subkey
 WHERE a.key = 1

Using RANK & CTE (SQL Server 2005+):

This will return all the values with subkey values that match, in case there are multiples.

WITH summary AS (
  SELECT t.*,
         RANK() OVER(ORDER BY t.subkey DESC) AS rank
    FROM TABLE t
   WHERE t.key = 1)
SELECT s.value
  FROM summary s
 WHERE s.rank = 1

Using ROW_NUMBER & CTE (SQL Server 2005+):

This will return one row, even if there are more than one with the same subkey value…

WITH summary AS (
  SELECT t.*,
         ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY t.subkey DESC) AS rank
    FROM TABLE t
   WHERE t.key = 1)
SELECT s.value
  FROM summary s
 WHERE s.rank = 1

Using TOP:

This will return one row, even if there are more than one with the same subkey value…

  SELECT TOP 1
         t.value
    FROM TABLE t
   WHERE t.key = 1
ORDER BY t.subkey DESC