[ale] Organizing data / SQL Question

[phasefx at magusaptus.com (Jason Etheridge)]

Chris Fowler wrote:
> +----------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+
> | alarm_id | notification_id | location_id | escalation_id |
> +----------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+
> |        5 |            NULL |           1 |             1 |
> |        5 |            NULL |           1 |             2 |
> |        5 |            NULL |           1 |             3 |
> |        6 |            NULL |           1 |             1 |
> |        6 |            NULL |           1 |             2 |
> |        6 |            NULL |           1 |             3 |
<snip>
> There are 3 rows for alarm 4 and I really only need to notify the users
> in the first escalation_id.  Is there a SQL function that will only give
> me the first row of each alarm since here I do not need the other 2?

Hrmm.. what is enforcing how these rows are ordered?  Just an 
implementation quirk?  Is the escalation_id you want always going to be 
smallest value?  SELECT MIN(escalation_id) FROM ... WHERE ... GROUP BY 
alarm_id ??

-- Jason