TOP and ORDER BY sql error

Question

I am trying to select the last record from a table in MySQL using PHP. I believe I have an SQL error. Here is my SQL code:

SELECT TOP 1 id FROM `table` ORDER BY id DESC

If this is valid and I actually have a PHP error, tell me.

Answer 1

you have an invalid sql syntax. use LIMIT instead

try this:

SELECT id  FROM table  ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1 

the TOP clause works on MSSQL server.

Answer 2

A simpler and more DBMS-agnostic approach would be:

SELECT MAX(id) AS id FROM table 

That's only if you want just the id field, otherwise if you tried to SELECT other columns, it wouldn't return matching data to the id field and you would instead have to use:

SELECT id, otherfields, ..., ... FROM table WHERE id = (SELECT MAX(id) FROM table)