>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I sense this there is something real simply I am missing in the following SQL Select but I don't seem to be understand it.
>>>
>>>I am trying to select one record from a Company table and one record from a Contact table (related to Company by column COMP_PK). But I get a NULL in column LASTNAME. Here is my SQL Select:
>>>
>>>

>>>select C1.*, C2.LASTNAME from COMPANY C1 LEFT JOIN ( select top 1 LastName, comp_pk from 
>>>CONTACT order by OrderNo ) C2 on C1.comp_pk = C2.comp_pk where 1=1
>>>

>>>
>>>What is wrong with my SQL Select?
>>
>>Have you considered using a function to get the Contact information? That would avoid the headache of the join and would let you re-use that code for other queries.
>
>I am not sure what you mean by "using a function". If you are referring to a VFP function than I can't. I have to pass the entire SQL Select to SQL Server and passing VFP function won't work.

Dmitry,

This is what Linda meant:

create function GetContactName (@Comp_pk int) return varchar(30)
as
  begin
   declare @ContactName varchar(30)
    select top 1 @ContactName = LastName from Contact where Comp_pk = @Comp_pk Order by OrderNo
   return @ContactName
 end

And to use it

select C1.*, dbo.GetContactName(C1.Comp_pk) as Contact from Company