strugging with distinct

[michaellunsford]

I'm trying to pull a list of projects in the order that they were last updated. There are a few tables, but I thought to just query the updates table so I can sort by the last updated item. I thought it was pretty simple stuff, but I just can't seem to get the query right. Any help or insights would be grand. Here's what I've tried so far:

 

//This works great except that there are multiple updates per project - so I get loads of duplicates.
"SELECT `project`,`date` FROM `table` ORDER BY `date` DESC"

//This returns exactly what the previous query does
"SELECT DISTINCT(`project`), `date` FROM `table` ORDER BY `date` DESC"

//This returns rows with the wrong date (not sorting by date before grouping), and thereby is in the wrong order
"SELECT `project`,`date` FROM `table` GROUP BY `project` ORDER BY `date` DESC"

//This one says "you have an error in your mysql syntax"
"SELECT `project`,`date` FROM `table` ORDER BY `date` DESC GROUP BY `project`"

 

[fugix]

check this link out here, should help

[michaellunsford]

ahh, the optimal function is MAX(`timestamp`). The rest of that guy's solution is a little weird, but MAX() works great. Thanks for the reply.