Question

This was resolved. The statement was in another part of the stored procedure.

The stored procedure I’m writing won’t allow me to do this:

 declare @dtTopDate datetime
  select top 1 @dtTopDate  = date_build
    from database..table
   where database..table.parent = @Parent
     and database..table.child = @Child
   order by date_build desc

Gives me this error:

Column “database..table.date_build” is
invalid in the ORDER BY clause because
it is not contained in either an
aggregate function or the GROUP BY
clause.

What am I doing wrong?

[Edit] There is no group by statement here. SQL2005.

Here is some more context:

if @Notify = 0
begin
     declare @dtTopDate datetime
      select top 1 @dtTopDate  = date_build
        from database..table
       where database..table.parent = @Parent
         and database..table.child = @Child
       order by date_build desc

      insert 
        into database2..table
             (parent, child, notification_date, change_date)
      values (@Parent, @Child, @dtTopDate, getdate())
     return 
end

Answer 1

The problem was in another part of the stored procedure. I was using a count(*) elsewhere and it required a group by. Thanks for the help.