Joining tables to return top N linked records

MS SQL Development

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December 4th, 2003, 04:31 PM

bigoteetoe

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Joining tables to return top N linked records

I am joining 2 tables that have a 1-to-Many relationship (for example Authors to Books). I would like there to be only one row returned per Author & Book combo.

Say,

SELECT
A.Name,
B.PublishedDate,
B.Title
FROM
Authors A
LEFT JOIN Books B ON A.Author = B.Author

but I would like to alter this query so there is only row per author, and the book displayed is the most recently published (B.PublishedDate) or some other criteria -- this is just an example.

I am sure there is an efficient/easy way in SQL to do this, but I can't quite get it.

December 5th, 2003, 04:43 AM

swampBoogie

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Code:

SELECT
A.Name,
B.PublishedDate,
B.Title
FROM
Authors A
LEFT JOIN Books B ON A.Author = B.Author
and publishDate in (select max(publishDate)
from books where author = b.author)

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