Re: Sort of Complex Query - Howto Eliminate Repeating Results

--- Michael Fuhr <mike(at)fuhr(dot)org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 12:07:12PM -0800,
> operationsengineer1(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
> > SELECT DISTINCT t_product.product_id,
> > t_product.product_number,
> > t_serial_number.serial_number_id,
> > t_serial_number.serial_number
> [...]
> > ORDER BY t_serial_number.serial_number::int ASC
> >
> > resulting error:
> >
> > ERROR: for SELECT DISTINCT, ORDER BY expressions
> must
> > appear in select list
>
> What data type is serial_number? I'm guessing not
> integer, else
> you wouldn't be casting it to integer in the ORDER
> BY clause. If
> you need that cast then also use it in the SELECT
> list:
>
> SELECT DISTINCT t_product.product_id,
> t_product.product_number,
> t_serial_number.serial_number_id,
> t_serial_number.serial_number::int
>
> --
> Michael Fuhr
>

Excellent! it worked - thank you very much, Michael.
i would've never made that connection.

serial_number is text. i went that route b/c i
thought i'd never do any math on serial_number. then
i learned how text sorts on numeric data -lol-

as an aside, the forms class i use was only outputting
one instance out of three in the array i created.
three in, one out. this process enabled the
highlighting of unexpected behavior in another piece
of software.

thanks again.

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