Select latest 2 records - Select top?

  • I have a table that I want to get the latest 2 records for each item.

    TABLE

    NAME.....LAST_SEEN

    joe.....1/1/2004

    joe.....1/2/2004

    joe.....1/3/2004

    ken.....1/3/2004

    ken.....1/4/2004

    ken.....1/5/2004

    bob.....1/3/2004

    bob.....1/7/2004

    bob.....1/9/2004

    I want the results from my sql to be:

    joe.....1/2/2004

    joe.....1/3/2004

    ken.....1/4/2004

    ken.....1/5/2004

    bob.....1/7/2004

    bob.....1/9/2004

  • Think you can do it with a UNION query – something like:

    select name, max(last_seen)

    from test

    group by name

    union

    select t1.name, max(t1.last_seen)

    from test t1

    inner join test t2

    on t1.name = t2.name

    where t1.last_seen < t2.last_seen

    group by t1.name

    If you haven't even tried to resolve your issue, please don't expect the hard-working volunteers here to waste their time providing links to answers which you could easily have found yourself.

  • I would suggest UNION ALL instead of just UNION


    Regards,
    Sachin Dedhia

  • You also could enumerate the groups within a group, and retrieve the ordinals from these enumerated groups that you arre interested in.

    In this case You want the first two occurences within each group ordered by LAST_SEEN desc.

    - Make sense eh!??

    Well example follows:

    select

     NAME,

     LAST_SEEN

    from

    ( select

      NAME,

      LAST_SEEN,

      cnt = ( select count(distinct tin.LAST_SEEN) from

    tin

       where tin.NAME = tout.NAME

       and tin.LAST_SEEN >= tout.LAST_SEEN ) -- a)

     from

      

    tout

     group by

      NAME,

      LAST_SEEN ) tcnt

    where

     cnt <= 2 -- b)

    order by

     NAME,

     LAST_SEEN

     

    a) this is where you specifiy the ordering - up or down. ( in this case down since we want the last two )

    b) this is where you specify which ones you want.

    if you were interested in the 2nd and 5th times LAST_SEEN you would write: ...where cnt in(2,5)...

    /rockmoose


    You must unlearn what You have learnt

  • Makes a lot of sense


    Regards,
    Sachin Dedhia

  • just a simple group by name,date will produce the result, why union and all and ofcourse top 2 will , and order by date desc

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    *Sukhoi*[font="Arial Narrow"][/font]

  • Sukhoi, select top2 ..... group by name, date order by date desc

    will not work.

    To get the result for a specific name you could do it like you suggest, but not for all the names in one resultset. eg:

    select top2 ..... group by name, date

    where name = 'joe'

    order by name, date desc

    just for 'joe'

    /rockmoose


    You must unlearn what You have learnt

  • yep you are right my technique doesn't work later i tried it out. u r does

    <a href="http://www.websolsoftware.com"> For IT jobs click here</a>

    *Sukhoi*[font="Arial Narrow"][/font]

  • Thank you all so much for your help. I have it working now due to your efforts!

  • Here's the most elegant way to do this, but it requires a identity column:

     

    Select *

    from #Table t

    where ID in

     (Select top 2 ID

      From #Table t1

      Where t.Name = t1.Name

      order by Last_Seen Desc)

     

    Use a correlated subquery in your where clause that selects the top 2 records

    if object_ID('tempdb..#Table') is not null drop table #Table

    create table #TABLE (ID int identity Not null, NAME varchar(25), LAST_SEEN datetime)

    insert #Table Values ('joe', '1/1/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('joe', '1/2/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('joe', '1/3/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('ken', '1/3/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('ken', '1/4/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('ken', '1/5/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('bob', '1/3/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('bob', '1/7/2004')

    insert #Table Values ('bob', '1/9/2004')

     

    Signature is NULL

  • Yes,

    And actually the correlated subquery technique only requires the table to have a Primary Key ( Or Unique Constriant ) defined on 1 column.

    The requirement is that the Uniqueness is defined on only one column ( IN clause ).

    /rockmoose


    You must unlearn what You have learnt

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