Question

in Access DB…
I need to extract the itemcode / desc combination for each itemcode in the following table where the desc has been used most frequently.

most frequently could possibly mean that there was only one version (see added record for pear)

in the case of itemcode 777, I’ll have to decide later which description version to use. if there are multiple records, each containing a single version of a description, that will definately create an additional problem.

the original question should probably also include returning the first row for itemcodes like 777 where all the existing records for an itemcode contain a single, unique description (so that the count would always be 1). the first row may not always be the correct version – but I won’t be able to automate that phase anyway.

---------------------
itemcode  | desc
---------------------
123       | apple
123       | apple
123       | apple
123       | apple 2
123       | apple-2
001       | orange
001       | orange
001       | ORANGE 1
001       | orange-1
666       | pear
777       | bananananana
777       | banana

so – I’m looking to end up with the following:

---------------------
itemcode  | desc
---------------------
123       | apple
001       | orange
666       | pear
777       | bananananana

I think I’m close, but the following only gets the description in the database which appears most frequently and only returns one row.

SELECT itemcode, desc, count(desc)
from table
group by itemcode, desc
having count(desc) = 
(
 select max(ct) from 
 (
  select itemcode, desc, count(desc) as ct
  from table
  group by itemcode, desc
  )
);

returns:

---------------------
itemcode  | desc
---------------------
123       | apple

Answer 1

This would work through a correlated sub-query:

SELECT 
  t.itemcode, t.desc, Count(t.desc) AS CountOfdesc
FROM 
  [table] AS t
GROUP BY 
  t.itemcode, t.desc
HAVING 
  Count(t.desc) IN (
    SELECT TOP 1 
      Count(i.desc)
    FROM 
      [table] AS i
    WHERE 
      i.itemcode = t.itemcode
    GROUP BY 
      i.itemcode, i.desc
    ORDER BY 
      Count(i.desc) DESC
  )
  AND t.desc = (
    SELECT TOP 1 
      i.desc
    FROM 
      [table] AS i
    WHERE 
      i.itemcode = t.itemcode
    GROUP BY 
      i.itemcode, i.desc
    ORDER BY 
      i.desc
  )
;

Returns (tested with Access 2003):

itemcode  desc          CountOfdesc
001       orange        2
123       apple         3
666       pear          1
777       banana        1

BTW you should really not be calling a table “table” and a column “desc”. Those are reserved SQL keywords, just avoid them to make your life easier.