Question

This question is complicated so examples would work best…I have the following table on ODBC, not SQL server Management

NAME     SEQNUM       JOHN     2           JOHN     4 JOHN     7 MARY     12 MIKE     4 MIKE     9 PETER    7 PETER    12 

So, i want to pull back one name with the lowest seqNum…

NAME     SEQNUM JOHN     2 MARY     12 MIKE     4 PETER    7 

This data will not work with SELECT (MIN(SEQNUM)). That returns a number. I want the actual data to put in my dataset. Does ANYONE know how to do that?

Answer 1

SELECT t1.* FROM yourtable t1  LEFT OUTER JOIN yourtable t2   ON (t1.name = t2.name AND t1.seqnum > t2.seqnum) WHERE t2.seqnum IS NULL; 

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Re. Dems’ comment:

If you simply use GROUP BY name then your select-list can only include name and the aggregate function MIN(). It’s often the case that you really want the whole row where the minimum value occurs per group.

If you use the TOP solution (or LIMIT if you use MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite), then you can’t get the minimum for multiple groups based on name, you can only get the minimum for one name.

I read between the lines of the OP’s question and guessed that they want the whole row, that there are more columns than those shown in the question (there always are), and that the desired query should return results for multiple names, not just one.

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Re. SquareCog’s comment:

The solution you suggest is also a join:

SELECT t1.* FROM yourtable t1   JOIN (SELECT name, MIN(seqnum) AS seqnum FROM yourtable GROUP BY name) t2   USING (name, seqnum); 

However, this solution probably can’t use indexes to evaluate the join, whereas the solution I gave can.