How to query MIN value of MAX subquery with two distinct columns? - mysql

Question

I have a table like this:
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+----------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default |
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+----------+
| id | smallint(6) | NO | PRI | NULL |
| Book | tinyint(4) | NO | | NULL |
| Chapter | smallint(6) | NO | | NULL |
| Paragraph | smallint(6) | NO | | NULL |
| Text | text | YES | | NULL |
| RevisionNum | mediumint(9) | NO | PRI | NULL |
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+----------+
mysql> select id,Book,Chapter,Paragraph,RevisionNum FROM MyTable ORDER BY id LIMIT 11;
+-----+------+---------+-----------+-------------+
| id | Book | Chapter | Paragraph | RevisionNum |
+-----+------+---------+-----------+-------------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
+-----+------+---------+-----------+-------------+
To find a book or chapter which has no unrevised paragraph,
I wish to query either the minimum value of the maximums of
all the distinct id's for that chapter or book, or else in
some fashion determine that no id remains unedited (with a
MAX(RevisionNum) of zero).
Most of my attempts to date have ended in errors like this one:
SELECT DISTINCT Book,RecordNum FROM MyTable
-> WHERE 0 < ALL (SELECT DISTINCT RecordNum,MAX(RevisionNum)
FROM MyTable
WHERE MAX(RevisionNum) > 0);
ERROR 1111 (HY000): Invalid use of group function
...And I wasn't using the "GROUP BY" function at all!
The following query produces results, but simply
gives ALL id's, and does not actually show a unique
set of Book records, as requested. How could this happen?
SELECT DISTINCT Book,id,MAX(RevisionNum) FROM MyTable GROUP BY id LIMIT 5;
+------+----+------------------+
| Book | id | MAX(RevisionNum) |
+------+----+------------------+
| 1 | 1 | 30 |
| 1 | 2 | 16 |
| 1 | 3 | 15 |
| 1 | 4 | 10 |
| 1 | 5 | 9 |
+------+----+------------------+
What would the correct query be to give results more like this:
+------+-----+-----------------------+
| Book | id | MIN(MAX(RevisionNum)) |
+------+-----+-----------------------+
| 1 | 5 | 3 |
| 2 | 17 | 1 |
| 3 | 33 | 2 |
| 4 | 147 | 0 |
| 5 | 225 | 2 |
+------+-----+-----------------------+

Answer 1

Are you looking for two levels of aggregation?
select id, book, min(max_revisionnum)
from (select id, book, chapter, paragraph, max(revisionnum) as max_revisionnum
from mytable
group by id, book, chapter, paragraph
) t
group by id, book;
EDIT:
Based on your comment, you can use:
select *
from (select id, book, chapter, paragraph, max(revisionnum) as max_revisionnum,
row_number() over (partition by book order by max(revisionnum) desc) as seqnum
from mytable
group by id, book, chapter, paragraph
) t
where seqnum = 1;
Here is a db<>fiddle.
In older versions of MariaDB, you can use a correlated subquery:
select t.*
from mytable t
where (id, book, chapter, paragraph, revisionnum) = (select t2.id, t2.book, t2.chapter, t2.paragraph, t2.revisionnum
from mytable t2
where t2.book = t.book
order by t2.revisionnum desc
limit 1
);
For this query, try adding an index on (book, revisionnum desc).