MySQL MIN of function tutorial

The MIN function of MySQL is used to find the minimum value of a recordset.

To understand that the EMPLOYEE_TBL table considered by the MIN function has the following records:

mysql> SELECT * FROM employee_tbl;
+------+------+------------+--------------------+
| id  | name | work_date | daily_typing_pages |
+------+------+------------+--------------------+
|  1 | John | 2007-01-24 |        250 |
|  2 | Ram | 2007-05-27 |        220 |
|  3 | Jack | 2007-05-06 |        170 |
|  3 | Jack | 2007-04-06 |        100 |
|  4 | Jill | 2007-04-06 |        220 |
|  5 | Zara | 2007-06-06 |        300 |
|  5 | Zara | 2007-02-06 |        350 |
+------+------+------------+--------------------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Now assume that you want to take the minimum value of daily_typing_pages based on the above table. You can do this by simply using the following command:

mysql> SELECT MIN(daily_typing_pages)
  -> FROM employee_tbl;
+-------------------------+
| MIN(daily_typing_pages) |
+-------------------------+
|           100 |
+-------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

The minimum value of all records can be found using the GROUP BY clause by name as follows:

mysql> id, name, work_date, MIN(daily_typing_pages)
  -> FROM employee_tbl GROUP BY name;
+------+------+------------+-------------------------+
| id  | name | work_date | MIN(daily_typing_pages) |
+------+------+------------+-------------------------+
|  3 | Jack | 2007-05-06 |           100 |
|  4 | Jill | 2007-04-06 |           220 |
|  1 | John | 2007-01-24 |           250 |
|  2 | Ram | 2007-05-27 |           220 |
|  5 | Zara | 2007-06-06 |           300 |
+------+------+------------+-------------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can use the MIN function and MAX function 1 to find the minimum. Try this example:

mysql> SELECT MIN(daily_typing_pages) least, MAX(daily_typing_pages) max
  -> FROM employee_tbl;
+-------+------+
| least | max |
+-------+------+
|  100 | 350 |
+-------+------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)