TSQL Select Max

Question

Userid   FirstName   LastName        UserUpdate 
1        Dan         Kramer          1/1/2005  
1        Dan         Kramer          1/1/2007  
1        Dan         Kramer          1/1/2009  
2        Pamella     Slattery        1/1/2005  
2        Pam         Slattery        1/1/2006  
2        Pam         Slattery        1/1/2008  
3        Samamantha  Cohen           1/1/2008  
3        Sam         Cohen           1/1/2009  

I need to extract the latest updated for all these users, basically here's what I'm looking for:

Userid   FirstName   LastName        UserUpdate  
1        Dan         Kramer          1/1/2009     
2        Pam         Slattery        1/1/2008   
3        Sam         Cohen           1/1/2009  

Now when I run the following:

SELECT Userid, FirstName, LastName, Max(UserUpdate) AS MaxDate FROM Table GROUP BY Userid, FirstName, LastName

I still get duplicates, something like this:

Userid   FirstName   LastName        UserUpdate 
1        Dan         Kramer          1/1/2009  
2        Pamella     Slattery        1/1/2005  
2        Pam         Slattery        1/1/2008  
3        Samamantha  Cohen           1/1/2008  
3        Sam         Cohen           1/1/2009 

Answer 1

try:

declare @Table table (userid int,firstname varchar(10),lastname varchar(20), userupdate datetime)
INSERT @Table VALUES (1, 'Dan'         ,'Kramer'          ,'1/1/2005')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (1, 'Dan'         ,'Kramer'          ,'1/1/2007')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (1, 'Dan'         ,'Kramer'          ,'1/1/2009')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (2, 'Pamella'     ,'Slattery'        ,'1/1/2005')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (2, 'Pam'         ,'Slattery'        ,'1/1/2006')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (2, 'Pam'         ,'Slattery'        ,'1/1/2008')  
INSERT @Table VALUES (3, 'Samamantha'  ,'Cohen'           ,'1/1/2008')
INSERT @Table VALUES (3, 'Sam'         ,'Cohen'           ,'1/1/2009') 

SELECT
    dt.Userid,dt.MaxDate
        ,MIN(a.FirstName) AS FirstName, MIN(a.LastName) AS LastName
    FROM (SELECT 
              Userid, Max(UserUpdate) AS MaxDate 
              FROM @Table GROUP BY Userid
         ) dt
        INNER JOIN @Table a ON dt.Userid=a.Userid and dt.MaxDate =a.UserUpdate
    GROUP BY dt.Userid,dt.MaxDate

OUTPUT:

Userid      MaxDate                 FirstName  LastName
----------- ----------------------- ---------- --------------------
1           2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 Dan        Kramer
2           2008-01-01 00:00:00.000 Pam        Slattery
3           2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 Sam        Cohen

Answer 2

You aren't getting duplicates. 'Pam' is not equal to 'Pamella' from the perspective of the database; the fact that one is a colloquial shortening of the other doesn't mean anything to the database engine. There really is no reliable, universal way to do this (since there are names that have multiple abbreviations, like "Rob" or "Bob" for "Robert", as well as abbreviations that can suit multiple names like "Kel" for "Kelly" or "Kelsie", let alone the fact that names can have alternate spellings).

For your simple example, you could simply select and group by SUBSTRING(FirstName, 1, 3) instead of FirstName, but that's just a coincidence based upon your sample data; other name abbreviations would not fit this pattern.