On Thu, 19 Aug 2021, Tom Lane wrote:
The best way is usually like select * from mytable order by contact_date desc limit 1; If you have an index on contact_date this should work very well indeed.
tom, I added an index on contact_date and the query returned only one row. Huh! Not what I expected. This is the script I need to fine-tune (and I've forgotten the role of sq since someone suggested it a few years ago): ---------- /* This query selects all whose next_contact date is today or earlier; no nulls. This version should select the most recent contact_date by person_nbr, order by person_nbr and next_contact date. STILL NEEDS WORK. */ select p.person_nbr, p.lname, p.fname, p.direct_phone, p.cell_phone, o.company_name, sq.* from people as p join companies as o on p.company_nbr = o.company_nbr cross join lateral (select * from contacts as a where a.person_nbr = p.person_nbr and a.next_contact <= current_date and a.next_contact is not null order by person_nbr, a.next_contact ASC ) sq order by sq.next_contact ASC; ---------- Rich