query with max and second factor [duplicate] - sqlite

Question

I have:
TABLE MESSAGES
message_id | conversation_id | from_user | timestamp | message
I want:
1. SELECT * WHERE from_user <> id
2. GROUP BY conversation_id
3. SELECT in every group row with MAX(timestamp) **(if there are two same timestamps in a group use second factor as highest message_id)** !!!
4. then results SORT BY timestamp
to have result:
2|145|xxx|10000|message
6|1743|yyy|999|message
7|14|bbb|899|message
with eliminated
1|145|xxx|10000|message <- has same timestamp(10000) as message(2) belongs to the same conversation(145) but message id is lowest
5|1743|me|1200|message <- has message_from == me
example group with same timestamp
i want from this group row 3 but i get row 2 from query
SELECT max(message_timestamp), message_id, message_text, message_conversationId
FROM MESSAGES
WHERE message_from <> 'me'
GROUP BY message_conversationId
ORDER by message_Timestamp DESC
what is on my mind to do union from message_id & timestamp and then get max???

Answer 1

Your query is based on non-standard use of GROUP BY (I think SQLite allows that only for compatibility with MySQL) and I'm not at all sure that it will produce determinate results all the time.
Plus it uses MAX() on concatenated columns. Unless you somehow ensure that the two (concatenated) columns have fixed widths, the results will not be accurate for that reason as well.
I would write the query like this:
SELECT
m.message_timestamp,
m.message_id,
m.message_text,
m.message_conversationId
FROM
( SELECT message_conversationId -- for every conversation
FROM messages as m
WHERE message_from <> 'me'
GROUP BY message_conversationId
) AS mc
JOIN
messages AS m -- join to the messages
ON m.message_id =
( SELECT mi.message_id -- and find one message id
FROM messages AS mi
WHERE mi.message_conversationId -- for that conversation
= mc.message_conversationId
AND mi.message_from <> 'me'
ORDER BY mi.message_timestamp DESC, -- according to the
mi.message_id DESC -- specified order
LIMIT 1 -- (this is the one part)
) ;

Answer 2

Try below sql to achieve your purpose by group by twice.
select m.*
from
Messages m
-- 3. and then joining to get wanted output columns
inner join
(
--2. then selecting from this max timestamp - and removing duplicates
select conversation_id, max(timestamp), message_id
from
(
-- 1. first select max message_id in remainings after the removal of duplicates from mix of cv_id & timestamp
select conversation_id, timestamp, max(message_id) message_id
from Messages
where message <> 'me'
group by conversation_id, timestamp
) max_mid
group by conversation_id
) max_mid_ts on max_mid_ts.message_id = m.message_id
order by m.message_id;
http://goo.gl/MyZjyU

Answer 3

ok it was more simple than I thought:
basically to change select from:
max(message_timestamp)
to:
max(message_timestamp || message_id)
or max(message_timestamp + message_id)
so it will search for max on concatenation of timestamp and message_id
ps. after a digging - it's working only if message id is growing with timestamp ( order of insertion is preserved )
edit:
edit2 :
so why it works ?
SELECT max(message_timestamp+message_id), message_timestamp, message_id, message_conversationId, message_from,message_text
FROM MESSAGES
WHERE message_conversationId = 1521521
AND message_from <> 'me'
ORDER by message_Timestamp DESC