[TriLUG] OT: SQL "Group by" question

[Andrew Perrin]

Yes, I understand it in that direction. It's the other direction I'm 
concerned about - I would like not just the date and isbn, but also the 
assign_id of the record returned by the max(assign_date) aggregate.

Thanks,
A

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl



On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, Cristobal Palmer wrote:

> You /have/ to have the column you want to group by in the select
> statement. How can you group by values in a column that you didn't
> retrieve? You have to have those values.
>
> The prof in my database class beat us over the head with this one. If
> you want a more detailed answer I can dig up the class notes on that.
>
> -CMP
>
> On 10/3/06, Andrew Perrin <clists at perrin.socsci.unc.edu> wrote:
>> Sorry for the slightly OT post, but my soft-science mind is having trouble
>> wrapping itself around an SQL problem.
>> 
>> I have a table of book-review assignments, including a unique identifier
>> (assign_id); the book's isbn (isbn); and the date we made the assignment
>> (assign_date). There are often numerous assignments per isbn. I would like
>> to retrieve the assign_id of the *latest* assignment per isbn.  I can get
>> this far:
>> 
>> select assign.isbn, max(assign.assign_date) as last_assign_date from
>> assign group by assign.isbn;
>> 
>> ...which will give me the isbn and latest assign date, but of course I
>> can't just ask for the assign_id in the way that seems obvious to me:
>> 
>> select assign.assign_date, assign.isbn, max(assign.assign_date) as
>> last_assign_date from assign group by assign.isbn;
>> 
>> because assign_date isn't in the GROUP BY clause.
>> 
>> I can't imagine there isn't an accepted answer to this - any advice? I am,
>> by the way, using postgresql 8.1 on debian linux.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Andy
>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
>> Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
>> University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
>> New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl
>> 
>> 
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>
>
> -- 
> Cristobal M. Palmer
> UNC-CH SILS Student -- ils.unc.edu/~cmpalmer
> TriLUG Vice Chair
> "There are many roads to enlightenment, and thus many roads back to
> the One True Debian" --crimsun
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