Question

Is there an option for getting the row with the highest date without joining the same table and use max(date) ?? Is Top1 order by desc a valid option ?

I use SQL Server 2000. And performance is important.

edit:

Table1:

columns: part - partdesc

Table 2:

columns: part - cost - date


select a.part,partdesc,b.cost
left join( select cost,part 
           right join(select max(date),part from table2 group by part) maxdate ON maxdate.date = bb.date  
           from table2 bb ) b on b.part = a.part
from table1

I don’t know if the code above works but that is the query I dislike. And seems to me inefficient.

Answer 1

Here’s a somewhat simplified query based on your edit.

SELECT 
    a.part,
    a.partdesc,
    sub.cost
FROM
    Table1 A
INNER JOIN
    (SELECT 
        B.part,
        cost
     FROM
        Table2 B
     INNER JOIN
        (SELECT
            part,
            MAX(Date) as MaxDate
         FROM 
            Table2
         GROUP BY
            part) BB
        ON bb.part = b.part
        AND bb.maxdate = b.date) Sub
    ON sub.part = a.part

The sub-sub query will hopefully run a little bit quicker than your current version since it’ll run once for the entire query, not once per part value.