Re: Umm, almost embarrassed to ask this, but....

Actually, no. Select distinct is much more costly than a select/where returning a single row. Have a look at sqexplain.out, you'll be horrified :-) Ciao, Marco _______________________________________________________________________________ Marco Greco, Catania, Italy marcog@linux.ctonline.it rem radioterapia +39 95 447828 fax 446558 Informix faq http://www.iiug.org/techinfo/faq/informix.htm 4glworks http://www.ctonline.it/~marcog Informix on Linux http://www.ctonline.it/~marcog/ifmxlinux.htm Kathy Zunino wrote: > > Better yet: > > select distinct today from systables ;> > At 07:51 PM 2/8/98 -0800, you wrote: > >Paul Roberts wrote: > >> > >> In article <34DB8723.410D@netcomuk.co.uk>, > >> Neil Truby <ntruby@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote: > >> >What's the best way to retrieve the value of a system variable, say > >> >TODAY? Obviously, I can do: [snip]