Get records with max value for each group of group

Question

How do you get the rows that contain the max value for each grouped set?

I've seen some overly-complicated variations on this question, and none with a good answer. I've tried to put together the simplest possible example:

Given a table like that below, with person, group, and age columns, how would you get the oldest person in each group? (A tie within a group should give the first alphabetical result)

Person | Group | Age
---
Bob  | 1     | 32  
Jill | 1     | 34  
Shawn| 1     | 42  
Jake | 2     | 29  
Paul | 2     | 36  
Laura| 2     | 39  

Desired result set:

Shawn | 1     | 42    
Laura | 2     | 39  

Answer 1

You can also try

SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE age IN (SELECT MAX(age) FROM mytable GROUP BY `Group`) ;

Answer 2

Using ranking method.

SELECT @rn :=  CASE WHEN @prev_grp <> groupa THEN 1 ELSE @rn+1 END AS rn,  
   @prev_grp :=groupa,
   person,age,groupa  
FROM   users,(SELECT @rn := 0) r        
HAVING rn=1
ORDER  BY groupa,age DESC,person

Answer 3

I would not use Group as column name since it is reserved word. However following SQL would work.

SELECT a.Person, a.Group, a.Age FROM [TABLE_NAME] a
INNER JOIN 
(
  SELECT `Group`, MAX(Age) AS oldest FROM [TABLE_NAME] 
  GROUP BY `Group`
) b ON a.Group = b.Group AND a.Age = b.oldest

Answer 4

I have a simple solution by using WHERE IN

SELECT a.* FROM `mytable` AS a    
WHERE a.age IN( SELECT MAX(b.age) AS age FROM `mytable` AS b GROUP BY b.group )    
ORDER BY a.group ASC, a.person ASC

Answer 5

You can join against a subquery that pulls the MAX(Group) and Age. This method is portable across most RDBMS.

SELECT t1.*
FROM yourTable t1
INNER JOIN
(
    SELECT `Group`, MAX(Age) AS max_age
    FROM yourTable
    GROUP BY `Group`
) t2
    ON t1.`Group` = t2.`Group` AND t1.Age = t2.max_age;

Answer 6

Not sure if MySQL has row_number function. If so you can use it to get the desired result. On SQL Server you can do something similar to:

CREATE TABLE p
(
 person NVARCHAR(10),
 gp INT,
 age INT
);
GO
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Bob', 1, 32);
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Jill', 1, 34);
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Shawn', 1, 42);
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Jake', 2, 29);
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Paul', 2, 36);
INSERT  INTO p
VALUES  ('Laura', 2, 39);
GO

SELECT  t.person, t.gp, t.age
FROM    (
         SELECT *,
                ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY gp ORDER BY age DESC) row
         FROM   p
        ) t
WHERE   t.row = 1;