MySQL “order by” inside of “group by”? Is it possible?

Instead of using ORDER BY inside GROUP BY, you can use the MAX() aggregate function.

The syntax is as follows −

SELECT yourNameColumnName,MAX(yourRankColumnName) FROM yourTableName
GROUP BY yourNameColumnName;

To understand the above syntax, let us create a table. The query to create a table is as follows −

mysql> create table MaxDemo
   -> (
   -> UserId int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   -> UserName varchar(20),
   -> UserRank int
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.77 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command. The query is as follows −

mysql> insert into MaxDemo(UserName,UserRank) values('Larry',2);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.21 sec)
mysql> insert into MaxDemo(UserName,UserRank) values('Sam',1);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)
mysql> insert into MaxDemo(UserName,UserRank) values('Sam',2);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

Now you can display all records from the table using a select statement. The query is as follows −

mysql> select *from MaxDemo;

Output

+--------+----------+----------+
| UserId | UserName | UserRank |
+--------+----------+----------+
|      1 | Larry    |        2 |
|      2 | Sam      |        1 |
|      3 | Sam      |        2 |
+--------+----------+----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to use MAX() function to get your result −

mysql> select UserName,MAX(UserRank) from MaxDemo group by UserName;

Output

+----------+---------------+
| UserName | MAX(UserRank) |
+----------+---------------+
| Larry    |             2 |
| Sam      |             2 |
+----------+---------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)