MYSQL LAST Function

MYSQL LAST Function returns the last match, value, row or redord for a given condition. Last function is more useful when we have to get what is the last entry in the table for any given condition or situation.

Syntax fot MYSQL LAST Function is

SELECT LAST(column_name) FROM table_name WHERE [condition];

Let us understand better with an example.

Consider student_list table with details for all the students. 

+-----+------------------+--------+-----------+
| sid | name             | year   | hostel_id |
+-----+------------------+--------+-----------+
|   1 | Ankur Rastogi    | First  |         4 |
|   2 | Amit Kumar       | Second |         8 |
|   3 | Ram Kumar        | Second |         8 |
|   4 | Shiv Saxena      | First  |         6 |
|   5 | Aman Aggarwal    | Third  |         3 |
|   6 | Nipun Gupta      | Fourth |         2 |
|   7 | Arpit Gupta      | Third  |         1 |
|   8 | Shantanu Rastogi | Second |         3 |
|   9 | Ramesh Kumar     | Third  |         1 |
|  10 | Neelima Dhingra  | Second |      NULL |
|  11 | Anu Sibbal       | Third  |      NULL |
+-----+------------------+--------+-----------+

Let us find the name of last student who entered in Third Year. MYSQL query for that will be

SELECT LAST(name) FROM student_list 
WHERE year = 'Third';

+------------+
| name       |
+------------+
| Anu Sibbal |
+------------+

FIRST function is not supported by some of the databases. So there we use work around for ex in MYSQL we can write the same query as

SELECT name FROM student_list 
WHERE year = 'THIRD' ORDER BY sid DESC LIMIT 1;