Easy select distinct question.....

Dear Reader and Posters,
I have a quick question about the use of a select statement.
I have this big db tbl and I would like to be able to select rows of
data using (i think) distinct. Here is the tricky part... I would only
like to apply the distinct to one column in the table not the all the
columns. I have been reading around and people have been reluctant to
elaborate on other peoples questions that are alike mine because they
say that it makes no sense to do what I want to do because if there
are two rows of data and everything except one column is the same then
what says which one gets selected. My answer is that I don't care. Is
this possible and if so can any one point me in the right direction?
Thank,
dp
Hi
"C" wrote:

> Dear Reader and Posters,
> I have a quick question about the use of a select statement.
>
> I have this big db tbl and I would like to be able to select rows of
> data using (i think) distinct. Here is the tricky part... I would only
> like to apply the distinct to one column in the table not the all the
> columns. I have been reading around and people have been reluctant to
> elaborate on other peoples questions that are alike mine because they
> say that it makes no sense to do what I want to do because if there
> are two rows of data and everything except one column is the same then
> what says which one gets selected. My answer is that I don't care. Is
> this possible and if so can any one point me in the right direction?
>
> Thank,
> dp
If you don't care what the other values are then just take then why don't
you just take the maximum of the other values and group by the column you
want to be distinct?
If this has to be a specific row then use the maximum of the Primary Key and
get the row that corresponds to that e.g.
SELECT m.PK, m.Col1, m.COl2
FROM ( SELECT MAX(PK) AS PK, Col1 FROM MyTable GROUP BY Col1 ) s
JOIN MyTable m ON m.PK = s.PK
John
|||Hi dp,
how should that look like, onyl distincing to one column ? If you want
one row per Distinct value, you will have to aggregate the other
columns with aggregate expressions like:
SELECT A,MON(B),MIN(C)
FROM SoneTable
Group BY A --This is the Distinct Column
HTH, Jens K. Suessmeyer.
http://www.sqlserver2005.de