Let's say that we can have the following values for columns A, B in a
table:


1, 4
1, 5
2, 8
2, 9
2, 7

How can I select from this table such that I only get one pairing of A
and B and it does not matter which one I get?

So, for the example above, I would get

1, n
2, m

where n is any one of and only one of 4 or 5
and m is any one of and only one of 9 or 7

for a result set consisting of 2 rows. E.g.:

1,4
2,7

FYI, I am using MS-SQL 2000, but I imagine there must a fairly cross-
database way of doing this, so I am asking here.

Thanks in advance,
T

"metaperl" <metaperl (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

select a, min(b) as b
from tbl
group by a

I arbitrarily chose min as a function to give you one of the values for b.
If it doesn't matter which value you are given, then it should be ok to give
you the min value.