Last & First SQL aggregate functions

Question

I'm trying to migrate an app. from Access to SQL Server, and find that Transact-SQL does not support LAST/FIRST functions.  Is there any alternative to these?
Below is the Access SQL statement:
SELECT Last(tblZoneNameString.Val) AS strZoneName, tblZoneNameString.TagIndex
FROM tblZoneNameString
GROUP BY tblZoneNameString.TagIndex
HAVING (((tblZoneNameString.TagIndex)>0));

Answer 1

In SQL Server 2005, you can do something like this:
select
tblZoneNameString.Val as strZoneName,
tblZoneNameString.TagIndex
from (
select
tblZoneNameString.Val as strZoneName,
tblZoneNameString.TagIndex,
rank() over (partition by tblZoneNameString.TagIndex order by ??????) as rk
from tblZoneNameString
) as T
where rk = 1
Where I've written ?????? you will need to put whatever column
or columns answer the question "last in order of what?". Perhaps
this is something like someDateTime DESC.
Steve Kass
Drew University
[email protected] wrote:
> I'm trying to migrate an app. from Access to SQL Server, and find that
> Transact-SQL does not support LAST/FIRST functions. Is there any
> alternative to these?
>
> Below is the Access SQL statement:
>
> SELECT Last(tblZoneNameString.Val) AS strZoneName,
> tblZoneNameString.TagIndex
> FROM tblZoneNameString
> GROUP BY tblZoneNameString.TagIndex
> HAVING (((tblZoneNameString.TagIndex)>0));
>
>