Maybe I'm on your twit filter, but I gave what I thought was a pretty clear example of how the SQL will not know which record to grab from in a non-normalized SQL. Foxpro before VFP8 is great for that in that if you already sort of know what you are looking for, you may not care. Unfortunately, you're not working with Foxpro and the rules are stricter.

>Ok. I'm still not getting it.
>
>There are different things going on here - selection, grouping and ordering.
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong here:
>
>SELECT determine which records to return, not how they're returned.
>
>GROUP BY puts like records together in the dataset based on the columns in the GROUP BY clause.
>
>ORER BY sorts them within their groups.
>
>
>So what does GROUP BY have to do with what records are returned?
>
>
>
>
>>There's no ORDER BY in the query and even if there was one, it's applied after GROUP BY not before.
>>
>>
>>>In the query #2 from wich record do you expect result value for Descript would come from for each group? SQL Engine does not have this info and cannot proceed.
>>>
>>>The question of 'which record' is answered by the WHERE clause, is it not? I always thought GROUP BY determined the physical order of the records in the result set, not which records are returned.
>>>
>>>So in your example #2, since, you said 'ORDER BY Code', then record #1 would be first, then record #2, based off the values in the code field.
>>>
>>>I don't see what I'm missing.
>>>
>>>
>>>>

>>>>Table: mytable
>>>>Code Descript Qty
>>>>  1  One      110
>>>>  1  OneOne   120
>>>>  2  Two      210
>>>>  2  Two      220
>>>>
>>>>-- #1
>>>>SELECT Code, SUM(Qty) FROM mytable GROUP BY Code
>>>>Result
>>>>Code Qty
>>>>  1  230
>>>>  2  430
>>>>
>>>>-- #2
>>>>SELECT Code, Descript, SUM(Qty) FROM mytable GROUP BY Code
>>>>Result
>>>>Code Descript  Qty
>>>>  1  ?         230
>>>>  2  ?         430
>>>>

>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"....than SQL engine wouldn't know what record it should come from"