Last x blog entries - but only once per user

Question

I would like to display a box with the last x (say 5) blog entries. But I would like to avoid that a very active user is listed twice.

My tryout boils down to:

Answer 1

Without knowing the table structure, it is rather difficult, however, this should give you a starting point:

SELECT `User`.`id`, max(`Blog`.`published`) 
FROM `comm_blogs` AS `Blog` 
LEFT JOIN `comm_users` AS `User` ON (`Blog`.`user_id` = `User`.`id`) 
WHERE `Blog`.`status` = 1 
GROUP BY `User`.`id` 
ORDER BY 2 DESC LIMIT 5

By selecting the max publishing date per use and then sorting afterwards, you will get a list of the 5 most recent posts by different users. You will need a second query afterwards to get the contents however.