[thelist] Problem with distinct
Matt Warden
mwarden at gmail.com
Fri Sep 7 16:49:27 CDT 2007
On 9/7/07, Bill Moseley <moseley at hank.org> wrote:
> Client says: "I want to be able to sort the widget list by its color".
>
> Developer: "But you can't do that because a widget might have more
> than one color. Which color would would you sort by?"
>
> Client: "90% of our widgets only have one color, so sort by that color. For
> the very few that have more than one color I don't care which one is used
> for sorting."
Distinct is evil
try this:
select widget_name, max(color)
from t_widgets
where color='red'
group by widget_name
order by widget_name
Not entirely sure it will allow you to do that on a varchar...
--
Matt Warden
Cincinnati, OH, USA
http://mattwarden.com
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