Re: [SQL] Finding the "most recent" rows

I tried this, and did not work.

ibs=> select * from ibs_billing_record order by start_time desc limit 2;
ERROR: parser: syntax error at or near "limit"

Regards,
Chai

Michael J Davis wrote:

> Try
> select * from the_place order by the_time desc limit 2;
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Bitmead [SMTP:chris(dot)bitmead(at)bigfoot(dot)com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 8:45 AM
> To: pgsql-sql(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [SQL] Finding the "most recent" rows
>
> Try
> SELECT the_place, max(the_time) FROM the_place GROUP BY the_place;
>
> Julian Scarfe wrote:
> >
> > I have a table (representing a set of observations) with datetime
> fields and a
> > non-unique place field.
> >
> > e.g.
> > create table obs (
> > the_time datetime,
> > the_place char(8),
> > ...other fields...
> > )
> >
> > I'd like an efficient way to pull out the most recent row (i.e.
> highest
> > datatime) belonging to *each* of a number of places selected by a
> simple
> > query.
> >
> > e.g. given a table such as:
> >
> > the_time the_place ...
> > 0910 London
> > 1130 London
> > 0910 Paris
> > 0930 London
> > 0840 Paris
> > 1020 London
> > 0740 Paris
> >
> > I'd like to select:
> > 1130 London
> > 0910 Paris
> >
> > Most of my attempts at this (as an SQL novice) feel very clumsy
> and
> > inefficient. Is there an efficient way of doing this in SQL?
> > --
> >
> > Julian Scarfe
>
> --
> Chris Bitmead
> http://www.bigfoot.com/~chris.bitmead
> mailto:chris(dot)bitmead(at)bigfoot(dot)com