MariaDB 10.3及更新版本使用GROUP_CONCAT。

这个想法是使用ORDER BY + LIMIT:

SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(id ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1) AS id,
       name,
       GROUP_CONCAT(Other_columns ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1) AS Other_columns
FROM t
GROUP BY name;

db < > fiddle演示

MySQL 8.0现在支持窗口函数，就像几乎所有流行的SQL实现一样。使用这个标准语法，我们可以编写每组最大n个查询:

WITH ranked_messages AS (
  SELECT m.*, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id DESC) AS rn
  FROM messages AS m
)
SELECT * FROM ranked_messages WHERE rn = 1;

这种方法和其他查找分组最大行的方法在MySQL手册中有说明。

以下是我在2009年写的关于这个问题的原始答案:

我这样写解:

SELECT m1.*
FROM messages m1 LEFT JOIN messages m2
 ON (m1.name = m2.name AND m1.id < m2.id)
WHERE m2.id IS NULL;

关于性能，一种解决方案或另一种解决方案可能更好，这取决于数据的性质。因此，您应该同时测试这两个查询，并在给定数据库的情况下使用性能更好的查询。

例如，我有一个StackOverflow八月数据转储的副本。我将使用它进行基准测试。Posts表中有1,114,357行。这是在我的Macbook Pro 2.40GHz的MySQL 5.0.75上运行的。

我将编写一个查询，为给定的用户ID(我的)查找最近的帖子。

首先在子查询中使用@Eric所展示的GROUP by技术:

SELECT p1.postid
FROM Posts p1
INNER JOIN (SELECT pi.owneruserid, MAX(pi.postid) AS maxpostid
            FROM Posts pi GROUP BY pi.owneruserid) p2
  ON (p1.postid = p2.maxpostid)
WHERE p1.owneruserid = 20860;

1 row in set (1 min 17.89 sec)

即使是EXPLAIN分析也需要超过16秒:

+----+-------------+------------+--------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+--------------+---------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table      | type   | possible_keys              | key         | key_len | ref          | rows    | Extra       |
+----+-------------+------------+--------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+--------------+---------+-------------+
|  1 | PRIMARY     | <derived2> | ALL    | NULL                       | NULL        | NULL    | NULL         |   76756 |             | 
|  1 | PRIMARY     | p1         | eq_ref | PRIMARY,PostId,OwnerUserId | PRIMARY     | 8       | p2.maxpostid |       1 | Using where | 
|  2 | DERIVED     | pi         | index  | NULL                       | OwnerUserId | 8       | NULL         | 1151268 | Using index | 
+----+-------------+------------+--------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+--------------+---------+-------------+
3 rows in set (16.09 sec)

现在使用我的LEFT JOIN技术生成相同的查询结果:

SELECT p1.postid
FROM Posts p1 LEFT JOIN posts p2
  ON (p1.owneruserid = p2.owneruserid AND p1.postid < p2.postid)
WHERE p2.postid IS NULL AND p1.owneruserid = 20860;

1 row in set (0.28 sec)

EXPLAIN分析表明这两个表都可以使用它们的索引:

+----+-------------+-------+------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys              | key         | key_len | ref   | rows | Extra                                |
+----+-------------+-------+------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | p1    | ref  | OwnerUserId                | OwnerUserId | 8       | const | 1384 | Using index                          | 
|  1 | SIMPLE      | p2    | ref  | PRIMARY,PostId,OwnerUserId | OwnerUserId | 8       | const | 1384 | Using where; Using index; Not exists | 
+----+-------------+-------+------+----------------------------+-------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

下面是我Posts表的DDL:

CREATE TABLE `posts` (
  `PostId` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `PostTypeId` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `AcceptedAnswerId` bigint(20) unsigned default NULL,
  `ParentId` bigint(20) unsigned default NULL,
  `CreationDate` datetime NOT NULL,
  `Score` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `ViewCount` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `Body` text NOT NULL,
  `OwnerUserId` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `OwnerDisplayName` varchar(40) default NULL,
  `LastEditorUserId` bigint(20) unsigned default NULL,
  `LastEditDate` datetime default NULL,
  `LastActivityDate` datetime default NULL,
  `Title` varchar(250) NOT NULL default '',
  `Tags` varchar(150) NOT NULL default '',
  `AnswerCount` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `CommentCount` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `FavoriteCount` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `ClosedDate` datetime default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`PostId`),
  UNIQUE KEY `PostId` (`PostId`),
  KEY `PostTypeId` (`PostTypeId`),
  KEY `AcceptedAnswerId` (`AcceptedAnswerId`),
  KEY `OwnerUserId` (`OwnerUserId`),
  KEY `LastEditorUserId` (`LastEditorUserId`),
  KEY `ParentId` (`ParentId`),
  CONSTRAINT `posts_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`PostTypeId`) REFERENCES `posttypes` (`PostTypeId`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

评论者注意:如果你想用不同版本的MySQL，不同的数据集，或者不同的表设计来做另一个基准测试，你可以自己做。我已经展示了上面的技术。Stack Overflow在这里向您展示如何进行软件开发工作，而不是为您做所有的工作。

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。

使用子查询返回正确的分组，因为您已经完成了一半。

试试这个:

select
    a.*
from
    messages a
    inner join 
        (select name, max(id) as maxid from messages group by name) as b on
        a.id = b.maxid

如果它不是id，你想要的最大值:

select
    a.*
from
    messages a
    inner join 
        (select name, max(other_col) as other_col 
         from messages group by name) as b on
        a.name = b.name
        and a.other_col = b.other_col

通过这种方式，可以避免在子查询中进行相关子查询和/或排序，这往往非常缓慢/低效。

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE primary_key IN (SELECT MAX(primary_key) FROM table_name GROUP BY column_name )

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