CROSS APPLY是我在解决方案中使用的方法，因为它对我和客户的需求都有效。从我所读到的，应该提供最好的整体性能，如果他们的数据库大幅增长。

这是一个相当老的话题，但我想我要发表我的意见，就像公认的答案对我来说并不是特别有效一样。我在一个大型数据集上尝试了gbn的解决方案，发现它非常慢(在SQL Server 2012中500多万条记录上>45秒)。看一下执行计划，很明显问题在于它需要一个SORT操作，这会大大降低速度。

下面是我从实体框架中提取的一个替代方案，它不需要SORT操作，只进行非聚集索引搜索。这将在前面提到的记录集中将执行时间减少到< 2秒。

SELECT 
[Limit1].[DocumentID] AS [DocumentID], 
[Limit1].[Status] AS [Status], 
[Limit1].[DateCreated] AS [DateCreated]
FROM   (SELECT DISTINCT [Extent1].[DocumentID] AS [DocumentID] FROM [dbo].[DocumentStatusLogs] AS [Extent1]) AS [Distinct1]
OUTER APPLY  (SELECT TOP (1) [Project2].[ID] AS [ID], [Project2].[DocumentID] AS [DocumentID], [Project2].[Status] AS [Status], [Project2].[DateCreated] AS [DateCreated]
    FROM (SELECT 
        [Extent2].[ID] AS [ID], 
        [Extent2].[DocumentID] AS [DocumentID], 
        [Extent2].[Status] AS [Status], 
        [Extent2].[DateCreated] AS [DateCreated]
        FROM [dbo].[DocumentStatusLogs] AS [Extent2]
        WHERE ([Distinct1].[DocumentID] = [Extent2].[DocumentID])
    )  AS [Project2]
    ORDER BY [Project2].[ID] DESC) AS [Limit1]

Now I'm assuming something that isn't entirely specified in the original question, but if your table design is such that your ID column is an auto-increment ID, and the DateCreated is set to the current date with each insert, then even without running with my query above you could actually get a sizable performance boost to gbn's solution (about half the execution time) just from ordering on ID instead of ordering on DateCreated as this will provide an identical sort order and it's a faster sort.

SELECT * FROM
DocumentStatusLogs JOIN (
  SELECT DocumentID, MAX(DateCreated) DateCreated
  FROM DocumentStatusLogs
  GROUP BY DocumentID
  ) max_date USING (DocumentID, DateCreated)

什么数据库服务器?这段代码并不是对所有的都有效。

关于你问题的后半部分，我认为应该在一栏中写上“地位”。您可以将DocumentStatusLogs保留为日志，但仍然将最新信息存储在主表中。

顺便说一句，如果你已经在文档表中有DateCreated列，你可以使用它来加入DocumentStatusLogs(只要DateCreated在DocumentStatusLogs中是唯一的)。

编辑:MsSQL不支持USING，因此将其更改为:

ON DocumentStatusLogs.DocumentID = max_date.DocumentID AND DocumentStatusLogs.DateCreated = max_date.DateCreated

我相信这是可以做到的。这可能需要一些调整，但你可以从组中选择最大值。

这些答案太夸张了。

SELECT
  d.DocumentID,
  MAX(d.Status),
  MAX(d1.DateCreated)
FROM DocumentStatusLogs d, DocumentStatusLogs d1
USING DocumentID
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 3 DESC

I've done some timings over the various recommendations here, and the results really depend on the size of the table involved, but the most consistent solution is using the CROSS APPLY These tests were run against SQL Server 2008-R2, using a table with 6,500 records, and another (identical schema) with 137 million records. The columns being queried are part of the primary key on the table, and the table width is very small (about 30 bytes). The times are reported by SQL Server from the actual execution plan.

Query                                  Time for 6500 (ms)    Time for 137M(ms)

CROSS APPLY                                    17.9                17.9
SELECT WHERE col = (SELECT MAX(COL)…)           6.6               854.4
DENSE_RANK() OVER PARTITION                     6.6               907.1

我认为真正令人惊讶的是，无论涉及的行数是多少，CROSS APPLY的时间都是如此一致。

试试这个:

SELECT [DocumentID]
    ,[tmpRez].value('/x[2]', 'varchar(20)') AS [Status]
    ,[tmpRez].value('/x[3]', 'datetime') AS [DateCreated]
FROM (
    SELECT [DocumentID]
        ,cast('<x>' + max(cast([ID] AS VARCHAR(10)) + '</x><x>' + [Status] + '</x><x>' + cast([DateCreated] AS VARCHAR(20))) + '</x>' AS XML) AS [tmpRez]
    FROM DocumentStatusLogs
    GROUP BY DocumentID
    ) AS [tmpQry]