OK. I give up. I gotta believe there is a cool way to use SQL queries to insure that no two rows of a result set have identical values in a particular field.
Sure, I can order the table by the field of interest then run a little loop to find and eliminate multiple records with identical values for the field.
And yes, I know how to use SELECT-SQL DISTINCT to eliminate rows where ALL fields are identical to a row already in the result set!
But I'll be damned if I can figure out an ELEGANT way to do what I want(eliminate rows with just one identical field), and I just gotta believe that this is such a common task (find initial work order for each part we make....or....make sure the value is unique BEFORE I try making it a primary key....etc.)
Surely one of you mavins out there has a spiffy solution!?
"The Iron Fish: The water is cold...but the fish don't mind"
...Jay Jenks, boyhood chum