SQL selecting rows by most recent date

Question

Using the following query and results, I'm looking for the most recent entry where the ChargeId and ChargeType are unique.

select chargeId, chargeType, serviceMonth from invoice

    CHARGEID    CHARGETYPE  SERVICEMONTH
1   101     R       8/1/2008
2   161     N       2/1/2008
3   101     R       2/1/2008
4   101     R       3/1/2008
5   101     R       4/1/2008
6   101     R       5/1/2008
7   101     R       6/1/2008
8   101     R       7/1/2008

Desired:

    CHARGEID    CHARGETYPE  SERVICEMONTH
1   101     R       8/1/2008
2   161     N       2/1/2008

Answer 1

You can use a GROUP BY to group items by type and id. Then you can use the MAX() Aggregate function to get the most recent service month. The below returns a result set with ChargeId, ChargeType, and MostRecentServiceMonth

SELECT
  CHARGEID,
  CHARGETYPE,
  MAX(SERVICEMONTH) AS "MostRecentServiceMonth"
FROM INVOICE
GROUP BY CHARGEID, CHARGETYPE