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From: Jaap W. van Dijk <j.w.vandijk.removethis@hetnet.nl>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server
Subject: Re: Simple question ...
Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 10:52:54 +0200
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On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 08:15:35 +0200, Sybrand Bakker
<gooiditweg@sybrandb.verwijderdit.demon.nl> wrote:

>On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 23:25:15 +0200, Jaap W. van Dijk
><j.w.vandijk.removethis@hetnet.nl> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 15:13:24 +0200, "Ernest Morariu"
>><ernest@gesora.com> wrote:
>>
>>...
>>>
>>>SELECT myField INTO myVariable FROM myTable WHERE myCondition;
>>>
>>...
>>
>>You could alter this slightly:
>>
>>SELECT MAX(myField) INTO myVariable FROM myTable WHERE myCondition;
>>
>>In case of no records this will yield NULL
>>In case of one record this will yield myField
>>
>>But note: the case of more than one record will now not error.
>>
>>Jaap.
>
>It will also fetch all affected records and conduct an internal sort
>on them. A pretty inefficient solution.

The OP wants to retrieve 1 record, with the possibility that zero
records will be retrieved. So in this case 'all affected records' will
be one at the most. 

Jaap.