Question

Picture this… a person adds a row of data about a computer into mysql and he again adds another row of essentially same row of data except that the date is different where each date is always stamped with the insert.

I want to be able to eliminate duplicates and show only the most recent row.

Let’s say we have a “computers” table with 3 fields: ID, COMPUTER, DATEADD

inside the table goes like this

1, dell, 2010-10-09
2, dell, 2011-10-10
3, gateway, 2010-03-03
4, dell, 2010-02-02

simple, ok… how do I get rid of dups of dell and only get dell with the latest date?

I tried this query:

 SELECT * 
  FROM  `computers` 
  GROUP BY computer
  ORDER BY dates ASC 

it doesnt perform as I expect – the date is not the latest.

Answer 1

Use DESC instead of ASC:

SELECT * 
FROM  `computers` 
GROUP BY computer
ORDER BY dateadd DESC;

UPDATE 1

Another shot:

SELECT *
  FROM computers c
 WHERE dateadd = (SELECT MAX(dateadd) 
                    FROM computers 
                   WHERE computer = c.computer)

but some problems might arise, if you have two or more entries of the same computer for one date.