Forum Discussion
Select MIN of 4 Dates
Hello Experts,
I have been doing some research online but cant seem to get this right.
If my dates are D1,D2,D3,D4 from MyTable.
How can I show the MIN of those dates?
I need to group by [ID]
I also need to account for Nulls.
I dont know if a function is best or an IIF statement.
thank you
let me know if need more info. I tried to keep it simple.
what do you mean by "current date"? isn't it the same with Date()?
see if the Conditions are met in the new function.
1. create a simple query for MyTable
2. View the query in 'design view'
3. Set the column holding your 'date' field to "Descending" (This establishes the priority for the most recent dates) and set the criteria for that column as "Is Not Null" (this will eliminate null values from the query).
4. While still in design view for the query, look for and select the 'Query Design' tab at the top.
5. In the 'Query setup' area, look for the 'Return: All' selection box, and change the 'All' to '5'.
6. This will return the top 5 most recent dates.
* You can manually type in the number '1' in the 'Return:' selection box, This will return only the top 1 entry.
Hi, thanks for the response.
I have followed as above but I dont completely understand why I would lmite the results to 5. I would remove records that I need. Maybe I am not understanding or maybe I need to explain a bit further.I have attached the output based on the query paramters above ( but I am showing ALL).
How would I bel able to return the MIN of the date for each ID?
I assume another query will need to be made. What is tricky is that I need to remove any dates in the past though so if it is a MIN in the record and if <Today then do not consider it.
- This screen shot clearly shows the "spreadsheet" style table problem. It is even shown in Excel, not Access! The solution is as I noted earlier. Correct the table design.
The main problem is an inappropriate table design for a relational database application.
Multiple fields of the same thing, named sequentially. XXX1, XXX2, XXX3, etc. always signal this problem.
This is, by the way, what has to be done in Excel because it lacks the ability to manage data relationally. We're not hampered the same way in Access and shouldn't incorporate inappropriate table designs from Excel.
The way to correct the problem is to properly normalize the tables involved. Here is an excellent series of three or four related blog articles describing the problem in more detail and explaining how to resolve it.
