A query to delete duplicates with GROUP BY

Question

id_specific_price    id_product  
-------------------------------
            1                2  
            2                2  
            3                2  
            4                3  
            5                3  
            6                3  
            7                3

Need to delete the duplicates, expected outcome:

id_specific_price    id_product  
-------------------------------
            3                2  
            7                3

---

SELECT * 
  FROM ps_specific_price 
 WHERE id_specific_price NOT IN 
 (SELECT MAX(id_specific_price) 
    FROM ps_specific_price 
   GROUP BY id_product) 

works but

DELETE FROM ps_specific_price 
 WHERE id_specific_price NOT IN 
(SELECT MAX(id_specific_price) 
   FROM ps_specific_price 
  GROUP BY id_product)

does not. There are plenty of examples to get around this but for some reason I am not able to adapt it. I believe it is GROUP BY. For example:

DELETE FROM ps_specific_price 
 WHERE id_specific_price NOT IN
 (SELECT MAX(p.id_specific_price) 
    FROM (SELECT * FROM ps_specific_price ) as p)
   GROUP BY id_product

Where did I go wrong here?

Answer 1

If you're looking for a solution for MySQL then you can use a proper multi table DELETE syntax along with a JOIN like this

DELETE p
  FROM ps_specific_price p JOIN
(
  SELECT id_product, MAX(id_specific_price) id_specific_price
    FROM ps_specific_price
   GROUP BY id_product
) d 
   ON p.id_product = d.id_product
  AND p.id_specific_price <> d.id_specific_price;

Outcome:

| ID_SPECIFIC_PRICE | ID_PRODUCT |
|-------------------|------------|
|                 3 |          2 |
|                 7 |          3 |

Here is SQLFiddle demo

Answer 2

Try this:

CREATE TABLE ps_specific_price (
  id_specific_price NUMBER,
  id_product NUMBER
);

INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (1, 2);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (2, 2);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (3, 2);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (4, 3);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (5, 3);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (6, 3);
INSERT INTO ps_specific_price (id_specific_price, id_product) VALUES (7, 3);

COMMIT;

DELETE FROM ps_specific_price ps
  WHERE ps.id_specific_price NOT IN (
    SELECT MAX(id_specific_price)
      FROM ps_specific_price ps_in
    WHERE ps_in.id_product = ps.id_product
    );

SELECT * FROM ps_specific_price;

ID_SPECIFIC_PRICE      ID_PRODUCT             
---------------------- ---------------------- 
3                      2                      
7                      3                      

You must connect the table from the inner query with the table from the outer one.

I'm using Oracle 11g R2. I checked this on SQLFiddle and my DELETE statement is invalid for MySQL - don't have that one installed and not much experience there, but you didn't say what database you are using.