Retrieve Last Row

[Yrogerg]

If I use the SQL statement "SELECT * FROM table" how would I retrieve just the last row, independantly of the other rows?

[bastien]

last row in table?
last row of recordset with certain criteria?

[monexx]

If you use a PK or store a date or anything ordered, the easiest way would be to ask the database to return you the first field in descending order.

If you're not, well, it depends of the database you are using!

[Yrogerg]

I'm using MySQL.
All I have stored is a varchar called 'message'.
I only want to display the most recent record which would be the very last row of the table.

[monexx]

if you get a whole lot of data in this table, the easiest way will be:

1- get the number of row in the table using the COUNT operator
2- use the LIMIT operator to get the last row

But since i never used MySQL (i use interbase), there might be better solutions

Hope that helps

S. Breton

[bastien]

<?

$sql="select * from table";

$result=mysql_query($sql,$conn) or die ("can't connect to db");

//find the number of rows

$numrows=mysql_num_rows($result);

//finds the last word of data by taking the total number of rows-1
//and finding that record (-1 due to startof array at index (0) and
//moves the pointer to the last row
$msgrequired=mysql_data_seek($result,Numrows-1)

//get the data
$msg=mysql_fetch_row($result)

//write the data to the browser
echo $msg;

hth