I'm trying to write a SQL statement to show me a list of sales for the top 20 salespeople in my department. The salespeople are in one table, their sales in another. The following doesn't work: SELECT s.first, s.last, sl.salesid, sl.amount FROM salespeople s, sales sl WHERE s.id = sl.salespersonid ORDER BY sl.amount LIMIT 0,20 This gives me the first 20 sales, not 20 salespeople and all their amount, however if I use a GROUP BY the sales aren't broken down individually. Thanks

If you want a list of all the sales by the top 20 salespeople, you may well need to use a subquery or a view. Note: this syntax should work in mysql 5.0 and higher. I can't make any promises about earlier versions (in fact, i all but guarantee it won't work in 3.23), and i've never touched oracle. SELECT s.first, s.last, sl.salesid, sl.amount FROM salespeople s INNER JOIN sales sl ON s.id = sl.salespersonid INNER JOIN ( SELECT salespersonid, SUM(amount) total FROM sales GROUP BY salespersonid ORDER BY total DESC LIMIT 0,20 ) top_20 ON s.id = top_20.salespersonid