这里有两个建议。首先，如果mysql支持ROW_NUMBER()，这很简单:

WITH Ranked AS (
  SELECT Id, Name, OtherColumns,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
      PARTITION BY Name
      ORDER BY Id DESC
    ) AS rk
  FROM messages
)
  SELECT Id, Name, OtherColumns
  FROM messages
  WHERE rk = 1;

我猜你说的"最后"是指最后一个。如果不是，则相应地更改ROW_NUMBER()窗口的ORDER BY子句。如果ROW_NUMBER()不可用，这是另一个解决方案:

其次，如果没有，这通常是一个很好的方法:

SELECT
  Id, Name, OtherColumns
FROM messages
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
  SELECT * FROM messages as M2
  WHERE M2.Name = messages.Name
  AND M2.Id > messages.Id
)

换句话说，选择没有相同名称的later-Id消息的消息。

试试这个:

SELECT jos_categories.title AS name,
       joined .catid,
       joined .title,
       joined .introtext
FROM   jos_categories
       INNER JOIN (SELECT *
                   FROM   (SELECT `title`,
                                  catid,
                                  `created`,
                                  introtext
                           FROM   `jos_content`
                           WHERE  `sectionid` = 6
                           ORDER  BY `id` DESC) AS yes
                   GROUP  BY `yes`.`catid` DESC
                   ORDER  BY `yes`.`created` DESC) AS joined
         ON( joined.catid = jos_categories.id )  

这是另一个没有子查询的选项。

本解决方案使用MySQL的LAST_VALUE窗口函数，利用窗口函数框架提供MySQL工具。

SELECT DISTINCT 
    LAST_VALUE(Id)            
        OVER(PARTITION BY Name 
             ORDER     BY Id 
             ROWS BETWEEN 0 PRECEDING 
                      AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING),
    Name,
    LAST_VALUE(Other_Columns)            
        OVER(PARTITION BY Name 
             ORDER     BY Id 
             ROWS BETWEEN 0 PRECEDING 
                      AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING)
FROM   
    tab

在这里试试。

我还没有测试大DB，但我认为这可能比连接表更快:

SELECT *, Max(Id) FROM messages GROUP BY Name

根据您的问题，下面的查询将很好地工作。

SELECT M1.* 
FROM MESSAGES M1,
(
 SELECT SUBSTR(Others_data,1,2),MAX(Others_data) AS Max_Others_data
 FROM MESSAGES
 GROUP BY 1
) M2
WHERE M1.Others_data = M2.Max_Others_data
ORDER BY Others_data;

SELECT 
  column1,
  column2 
FROM
  table_name 
WHERE id IN 
  (SELECT 
    MAX(id) 
  FROM
    table_name 
  GROUP BY column1) 
ORDER BY column1 ;