Display Column Value Once

Question

Hey,
I am trying to only display a column value one time for a record, not a static value. The value changes and there can be many values. I do not think grouping will work since the Date value is dynamic. I am using Oracle for Toad 10.5. There are 4 records with this test data.
select Date, Person, Language, Country
from TableA
TableA
Date            Person  Language   Country
01/25/2013       James   English
12/20/2012       James   English
                                     US
                                     AFWould like to only display
Date            Person  Language   Country
01/25/2013       James   English
12/20/2012 
                                     US
                                     AFThanks for reading this thread!
Edited by: Nikki on Jan 7, 2013 1:08 PM

Answer 1

Hi,
You can use the analytic ROW_NUMBER function to see if a given row is the 1st row in a group, and only display the person and language columns when it is:
WITH     got_r_num     AS
     SELECT       dt          -- DATE is not a good column name
     ,       person, language, country
     ,       ROW_NUMBER () OVER ( PARTITION BY  person
                                  ,          language
                           ORDER BY          dt
                         )  AS r_num
     FROM      table_x
SELECT       dt
,       CASE WHEN r_num = 1 THEN person   END)     AS person
,       CASE WHEN r_num = 1 THEN language END)     AS language
,       country
FROM       got_r_num
ORDER BY  person, language, dt     -- If wanted
;Your front end may also have a way to hide those values when you want. The BREAK feature in SQL*Plus does this; I don't know if Toad has anything comparable.
I hope this answers your question.
If not, post a little sample data (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements, relevant columns only) where the query above produces the wrong results, and also post the right results you want from that data.
Explain, using specific examples, how you get those results from that data.
Always say which version of Oracle you're using (e.g., 11.2.0.2.0).
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