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 SQL 2000 Duplicates

Author  Topic 

mpkopa
Starting Member

1 Post

Posted - 2001-02-06 : 14:07:38
I have a table (Products - ID,Name,Category,DateEntered) that has multiple duplicates of the same Name item. Some records are repeated as many as 20 or more times. My dilema - I need to keep the top 3 records by DateEntered (Most recent entries)for any Name that is duplicated. Example:

id Name Category DateEntered
1 Apples Granny 1/28/2001
2 Apples Yellow 1/02/2001
3 Apples Macs 12/31/2000
4 Apples Delicious 12/05/2000
5 Apples Green 12/01/2000
6 Oranges Florida 1/22/2001
7 Oranges California 1/12/2001
8 Oranges Navel 1/02/2001
9 Oranges Sweet 12/22/2000
Yada Yada...

The recordset I've been handed has over 8M records. How can I walk down thru the recordset telling SQL to keep only the most recently entered records, but ONLY the most recent 3 duplicate records, and delete all the others for that particular Name - leaving the top 3 records only for duplicates that have more than 3 entries? EX:Apples 1,2,3 and Oranges 6,7,8

Could you possibly provide some code so I can begin to see the process? I'm Stumped! Thanks for your help
Mike



   

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