(Nested?) Select statement with MAX and WHERE clause - oracle

Question

I'm cranking my head on a set of data in order to generate a report from a Oracle DB.
Data are in two tables:
SUPPLY
DEVICE
There is only one column that links the two tables:
SUPPLY.DEVICE_ID
DEVICE.ID
In SUPPLY, there are these data: (Markdown is not working well. it's supposed to show a table)
| DEVICE_ID | COLOR_TYPE | SERIAL | UNINSTALL_DATE |
|----------- |------------ |-------------- |--------------------- |
| 1232 | 1 | CAP857496 | 08/11/2016,19:10:50 |
| 5263 | 2 | CAP57421 | 07/11/2016,11:20:00 |
| 758 | 3 | CBO753421869 | 07/11/2016,04:25:00 |
| 758 | 4 | CC9876543 | 06/11/2016,11:40:00 |
| 8575 | 4 | CVF75421 | 05/11/2016,23:59:00 |
| 758 | 4 | CAP67543 | 30/09/2016,11:00:00 |
In DEVICE, there are columns that I've to select all (more or less), but each row is unique.
What i need to achieve is:
for each SUPPLY.DEVICE_ID and SUPPLY.COLOR_TYPE, I need the most recent ROW -> MAX(UNINSTALL_DATE)
JOINED with
more or less all the columns in DEVICE.
At the end I should have something like this:
| ACCOUNT_CODE | MODEL | DEVICE.SERIAL | DEVICE_ID | COLOR_TYPE | SUPPLY.SERIAL | UNINSTALL_DATE |
|-------------- |------- |--------------- |----------- |------------ |--------------- |--------------------- |
| BUSTO | MS410 | LM753 | 1232 | 1 | CAP857496 | 08/11/2016,19:10:50 |
| MACCHI | MX310 | XC876 | 5263 | 2 | CAP57421 | 07/11/2016,11:20:00 |
| ASL_COMO | MX711 | AB123 | 758 | 3 | CBO753421869 | 07/11/2016,04:25:00 |
| ASL_COMO | MX711 | AB123 | 758 | 4 | CC9876543 | 06/11/2016,11:40:00 |
| ASL_VARESE | X950 | DE8745 | 8575 | 4 | CVF75421 | 05/11/2016,23:59:00 |
So far, using a nested select like:
SELECT DEVICE_ID,COLOR_TYPE,SERIAL,UNINSTALL_DATE FROM
(SELECT SELECT DEVICE_ID,COLOR_TYPE,SERIAL,UNINSTALL_DATE
FROM SUPPLY WHERE DEVICE_ID = '123456' ORDER BY UNINSTALL_DATE DESC)
WHERE ROWNUM <= 1
I managed to get the highest value on the UNISTALL_DATE column after trying MAX(UNISTALL_DATE) or HIGHEST(UNISTALL_DATE).
I tried also:
SELECT SUPPLY.DEVICE_ID, SUPPLY.COLOR_TYPE, ....
FROM SUPPLY,DEVICE WHERE SUPPLY.DEVICE_ID = DEVICE.ID
and it works, but gives me ALL the items, basically it's a merge of the two tables.
When I try to narrow the data selected, i get errors or a empty result.
I'm starting to wonder that it's not possible to obtain this data and i'm starting to export the data in excel and work from there, but I wish someone can help me before giving up...
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

for each SUPPLY.DEVICE_ID and SUPPLY.COLOR_TYPE, I need the most recent ROW -> MAX(UNINSTALL_DATE)
Use ROW_NUMBER function in this way:
SELECT s.*,
row_number() OVER (
PARTITION BY DEVICE_ID, COLOR_TYPE
ORDER BY UNINSTALL_DATE DESC
) As RN
FROM SUPPLY s
This query marks most recent rows with RN=1
JOINED with more or less all the columns in DEVICE.
Just join the above query to DEVICE table
SELECT d.*,
x.COLOR_TYPE,
x.SERIAL,
x.UNINSTALL_DATE
FROM (
SELECT s.*,
row_number() OVER (
PARTITION BY DEVICE_ID, COLOR_TYPE
ORDER BY UNINSTALL_DATE DESC
) As RN
FROM SUPPLY s
) x
JOIN DEVICE d
ON d.DEVICE_ID = x.DEVICE_ID AND x.RN=1

Answer 2

OK - so you could group by device_id, color_type and select max(uninstall_date) as well, and join to the other table. But you would miss the serial value for the most recent row (for each combination of device_id, color_type).
There are a few ways to fix that. Your attempt with rownum was close, but the problem is that you need to order within each "group" (by device_id, color_type) and get the first row from each group. I am sure someone will post a solution along those lines, using either row_number() or rank() or perhaps the analytic version of max(uninstall_date).
When you just need the "top" row from each group, you can use keep (dense_rank first/last) - which may be slightly more efficient - like so:
select device_id, color_type,
max(serial) keep (dense_rank last order by uninstall_date) as serial,
max(uninstall_date) as uninstall_date
from supply
group by device_id, color_type
;
and then join to the other table. NOTE: dense_rank last will pick up the row OR ROWS with the most recent (max) date for each group. If there are ties, that is more than one row; the serial will then be the max (in lexicographical order) among those rows with the most recent date. You can also select min, or add some order so you pick a specific one (you didn't discuss this possibility).

Answer 3

SELECT
d.ACCOUNT_CODE, d.DNS_HOST_NAME,d.IP_ADDRESS,d.MODEL_NAME,d.OVERRIDE_SERIAL_NUMBER,d.SERIAL_NUMBER,
s.COLOR, s.SERIAL_NUMBER, s.UNINSTALL_TIME
FROM (
SELECT s.DEVICE_ID, s.LAST_LEVEL_READ, s.SERIAL_NUMBER,TRUNC(s.UNINSTALL_TIME), row_number()
OVER (
PARTITION BY DEVICE_ID, COLOR
ORDER BY UNINSTALL_TIME DESC
) As RN
FROM SUPPLY s
WHERE s.UNINSTALL_TIME IS NOT NULL AND s.SERIAL_NUMBER IS NOT NULL
)
JOIN DEVICE d
ON d.ID = s.DEVICE_ID AND s.RN=1;
#krokodilko: thank you very much for your help. First query works. Modified it in order to remove junk, putting real columns name i need (yesterday evening i had no access to the DB) and getting only the data I need.
Unfortunately, when I join the two tables as you suggested I get error:
ORA-00904: "S"."RN": invalid identifier
00904. 00000 - "%s: invalid identifier"
If i remove s. before RN, the ORA-00904 moves back to s.DEVICE_ID.