Oracle: getting maximum value of a group?

Question

Given a table like this, what query will the most recent calibration information for each monitor? In other words, I want to find the maximum date value for each of the monitors. Oracle-specific functionality is fine for my application.

monitor_id     calibration_date  value
----------     ----------------  -----
1              2011/10/22        15
1              2012/01/01        16
1              2012/01/20        17
2              2011/10/22        18
2              2012/01/02        19

The results for this example would look like this:

1  2012/01/20 17
2  2012/01/02 19

Answer 1

I'd tend to use analytic functions

SELECT monitor_id,
       host_name,
       calibration_date,
       value
  FROM (SELECT b.monitor_id,
               b.host_name,
               a.calibration_date,
               a.value,
               rank() over (partition by b.monitor_id order by a.calibration_date desc) rnk
          FROM table_name a,
               table_name2 b
         WHERE a.some_key = b.some_key)
 WHERE rnk = 1

You could also use correlated subqueries though that will be less efficient

SELECT monitor_id,
       calibration_date,
       value
  FROM table_name a
 WHERE a.calibration_date = (SELECT MAX(b.calibration_date)
                               FROM table_name b
                              WHERE a.monitor_id = b.monitor_id)