Finding a Maximum with MAX()
Use the aggregate function MAX() to find the maximum of a set of values.
To find the maximum of a set of values:
Type:
MAX(expr)
expr is a column name, literal, or expression. The result has the same data type as expr.
Listing 6.2 and Figure 6.2 show some queries that involve MAX(). The first query returns the authors last name that is last alphabetically. The second query returns the prices of the cheapest and most expensive books, and the price range. The third query returns the highest revenue (= price ´ sales) among the history books.
Listing 6.2 Some MAX() queries. See Figure 6.2 for the results.
SELECT MAX(au_lname) AS "Max last name" FROM authors; SELECT MIN(price) AS "Min price", MAX(price) AS "Max price", MAX(price) - MIN(price) AS "Range" FROM titles; SELECT MAX(price * sales) AS "Max history revenue" FROM titles WHERE type = 'history';
Figure 6.2 Results of Listing 6.2.
TIPS
MAX() works with character, numeric, and datetime data types.
With character data columns, MAX() finds the value that is highest in the sort sequence; see Sorting Rows with ORDER BY in Chapter 4.
DISTINCT isnt meaningful with MAX(); see Aggregating Distinct Values with DISTINCT later in this chapter.
String comparisons may be case-insensitive or case-sensitive, depending on your DBMS; see the DBMS Tip in Filtering Rows with WHERE in Chapter 4.
When comparing two VARCHAR strings for equality, your DBMS may right-pad the shorter string with spaces and compare the strings position-by-position. In this case, the strings Jack and Jack are equal. Refer to your DBMS documentation (or experiment) to determine which string MAX() returns.