Help with query to do with aggregating for MIN(DATE)

Question

Say i have the following table of data:
Table: TEST               
ID     TDATE     CLIENT     VAL
1A     1/10/2005     client1     10
2A     2/10/2005     client1     30
3A     3/11/2005     client2     22
4A     5/10/2005     client2     43
5A     5/10/2005     client2     3
6A     6/10/2005     client3     5
7A     7/10/2005     client3     76
I want to create a query that will retrieve a distinct list of the CLIENT column (ie. in the above table I want only 3 records retrieved in the query as there are only 3 clients) and the corresponding ID and VAL for the client record with the MIN(DATE). In the case where 2 dates are the same, I dont care which record is selected as long as the ID and VAL columns belong to the same record.
For example in the above data I would expect the following returned in the query:
ID     CLIENT     VAL
1A     client1     10
4A     client2     43 <- this record could also be 5A, client2, 3
6A     client3     5
Please help.

Answer 1

Hi Joshua,
You didn't post your Oracle version but I hope it supports analytic functions.
Try as follows:
SQL> select id,
  2         tdate,
  3         client,
  4         val
  5    from (select t.*,
  6                 row_number() over
  7                   (partition by client order by tdate) rn
  8            from test t)
  9   where rn = 1;
ID         TDATE      CLIENT                                VAL
1A         01/10/2005 client1                                10
4A         05/10/2005 client2                                43
6A         06/10/2005 client3                                 5Regards.