Re: Sort of Complex Query - Howto Eliminate Repeating Results

--- Michael Fuhr <mike@fuhr.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 12:07:12PM -0800,
> operationsengineer1@yahoo.com wrote:
> > SELECT DISTINCT t_product.product_id,
> >        t_product.product_number,
> >        t_serial_number.serial_number_id,
> >        t_serial_number.serial_number
> [...]
> > ORDER BY t_serial_number.serial_number::int ASC
> >
> > resulting error:
> >
> > ERROR:  for SELECT DISTINCT, ORDER BY expressions
> must
> > appear in select list
>
> What data type is serial_number?  I'm guessing not
> integer, else
> you wouldn't be casting it to integer in the ORDER
> BY clause.  If
> you need that cast then also use it in the SELECT
> list:
>
> SELECT DISTINCT t_product.product_id,
>        t_product.product_number,
>        t_serial_number.serial_number_id,
>        t_serial_number.serial_number::int
>
> --
> Michael Fuhr
>

Excellent!  it worked - thank you very much, Michael.
i would've never made that connection.

serial_number is text.  i went that route b/c i
thought i'd never do any math on serial_number.  then
i learned how text sorts on numeric data  -lol-

as an aside, the forms class i use was only outputting
one instance out of three in the array i created.
three in, one out.  this process enabled the
highlighting of unexpected behavior in another piece
of software.

thanks again.

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