Which is the fastest way to get a column's maximum value in MySQL?

You can try to get a column’s maximum value using two ways. The first way is as follows −

select max(yourColumnName) from yourTableName;

The second way is as follows −

select yourColumnName from yourTableName order by yourColumnName DESC LIMIT 1;

NOTE − The first query takes less time than the second query because the second query first sort n number of values then gives the highest value using LIMIT 1. Therefore, use the first query.

Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable
(
   Number int
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.59 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values(78);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(87);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.26 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(89);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(69);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(87);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+--------+
| Number |
+--------+
|     78 |
|     87 |
|     89 |
|     69 |
|     87 |
+--------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to get a column’s maximum value −

mysql> select max(Number) from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+-------------+
| max(Number) |
+-------------+
|          89 |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.06 sec)