mikec

Hello,

Hoping someone can help me with this...I'm pulling data from 2 tables: Employment and Job. The Job table has multiple effective dates (effdt), so when I run the statement, I'm getting ALL the rows, and I want only the most recent record. I've been playing around with "select max" and I can't seem to get it right....can you?? Also, I had to add distinct to the select, otherwise each effdt was appearing twice. Thanks in advance for your help!

select distinct e.emplid, e.check_voucher_ind, j.empl_status, j.effdt
from ps_employment e, ps_job j
where e.emplid = j.emplid
and j.emplid = '105917'
order by check_voucher_ind

Results are:
EMPLID Check_voucher_ind Status effdt
105917 N A 11/03/2003 00:00:00
105917 N A 06/03/2004 00:00:00
105917 N A 07/03/2004 00:00:00
105917 N A 07/02/2005 00:00:00
105917 N A 09/28/2005 00:00:00
105917 N A 12/05/2005 00:00:00
105917 N A 07/01/2006 00:00:00
105917 N A 07/07/2006 00:00:00
105917 N A 09/19/2006 00:00:00
105917 N A 11/04/2006 00:00:00
105917 N A 06/30/2007 00:00:00
105917 N P 05/18/2004 00:00:00

__________________
Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality

Chilly McFreeze

select distinct e.emplid, e.check_voucher_ind, j.empl_status, j.effdt
from ps_employment e, ps_job j
where e.emplid = j.emplid
and j.emplid = '105917'
and j.effdt =(select max(j2.effdt) from ps_job j2 where j.emplid = j2.emplid)
order by check_voucher_ind

ratbastid

The simple solution is to put a "LIMIT 1" on the end of that statement. You lose some efficiency, but you get exactly your results. I wouldn't put that anywhere it's liable to be run more than once a second, or anywhere transaction volume is high.

If you can do sub-selects, you can:
SELECT ... FROM ps_employment WHERE effdt = (SELECT MAX(effdt) FROM ps_employment);

That's the elegant solution. But not all databases (I'm looking at you, older versions of MySQL) support subselects.

Bear in mind that the sub-select option isn't guaranteed to get you just one record unless your effdt field is defined UNIQUE (or guaranteed unique in code).

mikec

that did it! thanks a lot Chilly!! I see how you aliased ps_job again....clearly I have much to learn about SQL.

ratbastid - it's an oracle ADP database. antiquated would be a nice way of putting it. I only run this once every 2 weeks to capture selections on people electing paperless payroll...thanks for your input!

__________________
Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality

Chilly McFreeze

No probs mike, sorry I didn't think to ask if your database supported sub queries, I only ever use Oracle 9i or 10g so it didn't even occur to me!

mikec

edited: nevermind, ADP finally helped me. there were other tables to factor in..... if you're curious:

select e.emplid, e.check_voucher_ind, j.empl_status, j.effdt
from ps_employment e, ps_job j
where e.emplid = j.emplid
and j.effdt =(select max(j2.effdt) from ps_job j2 where j.emplid = j2.emplid)
AND J.EFFDT = (SELECT MAX(JJ.EFFDT) FROM PS_JOB JJ WHERE JJ.EMPLID = J.EMPLID
AND JJ.EMPL_RCD_NBR = J.EMPL_RCD_NBR
AND JJ.EFFDT <= SYSDATE)
AND
J.EFFSEQ = (SELECT MAX(JJJ.EFFSEQ) FROM PS_JOB JJJ WHERE JJJ.EMPLID = J.EMPLID
AND JJJ.EMPL_RCD_NBR = J.EMPL_RCD_NBR
AND JJJ.EFFDT = J.EFFDT)
order by check_voucher_ind

__________________
Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality