SQL issue using GROUP BY and ORDER BY together

I am having an issue with SQL not behaving as I expect it to. (MySQL 5.1.41 although it shouldn’t be relevant.) I am hoping I’ve missed something really obvious but I just can’t see it at the moment, hence blog post.

I am dealing with submissions to a node with some data.

CREATE TABLE test (time int, nodeid int, data varchar(50));

DESCRIBE test;
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field  | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| time   | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| nodeid | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| data   | varchar(50) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

time is the primary key for purposes of this explanation
nodeid is a foreign key
data is some information associated with a submission

INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (1, 1, 'ONE');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (2, 2, 'TWO');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (3, 3, 'THREE');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (4, 4, 'FOUR');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (5, 1, 'FIVE');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (6, 2, 'SIX');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (7, 1, 'SEVEN');
INSERT INTO test (time, nodeid, data) VALUES (8, 3, 'EIGHT');

SELECT * FROM test;
+------+--------+-------+
| time | nodeid | data  |
+------+--------+-------+
|    1 |      1 | ONE   |
|    2 |      2 | TWO   |
|    3 |      3 | THREE |
|    4 |      4 | FOUR  |
|    5 |      1 | FIVE  |
|    6 |      2 | SIX   |
|    7 |      1 | SEVEN |
|    8 |      3 | EIGHT |
+------+--------+-------+

Node 1 has three submissions: ONE, FIVE, SEVEN
Node 2 has two submissions: TWO, SIX
Node 3 has two submissions: THREE, EIGHT
Node 4 has one submission: FOUR

We want to show the submissions, most recent first:

SELECT time, nodeid, data FROM test ORDER BY time DESC;
+------+--------+-------+
| time | nodeid | data  |
+------+--------+-------+
|    8 |      3 | EIGHT |
|    7 |      1 | SEVEN |
|    6 |      2 | SIX   |
|    5 |      1 | FIVE  |
|    4 |      4 | FOUR  |
|    3 |      3 | THREE |
|    2 |      2 | TWO   |
|    1 |      1 | ONE   |
+------+--------+-------+

But now we want to show only the most recent submission for each node, so we try:

SELECT time, nodeid, data FROM test GROUP BY nodeid ORDER BY time DESC;
+------+--------+-------+
| time | nodeid | data  |
+------+--------+-------+
|    4 |      4 | FOUR  |
|    3 |      3 | THREE |
|    2 |      2 | TWO   |
|    1 |      1 | ONE   |
+------+--------+-------+

That’s not what we want! The most recent submissions are 8, 7, 6 and 4.

Among other things I have tried:

SELECT time, nodeid, data FROM test GROUP BY nodeid ORDER BY MAX(time) DESC;

(returns first submissions ordered by last submission time)

SELECT MAX(time), nodeid, data FROM test GROUP BY nodeid ORDER BY MAX(time) DESC;

(returns first submission data but last submission time)

SELECT time, nodeid, data FROM test GROUP BY nodeid HAVING time = MAX(time) ORDER BY time DESC;

(returns only one result)

SELECT time, MAX(time) timemax, nodeid, data FROM test WHERE time = timemax GROUP BY nodeid ORDER BY time DESC;

(error: can’t use aggregation functions in WHERE clause)

Is there anyone who can help me out and suggest how to get the result set I need?

Alan Hazelden : 02 Nov 2010 19:15 |  Tags: Programming |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem