sql server - Removing duplicate rows (based on values from multiple columns) from SQL table

Question

I have following SQL table:

AR_Customer_ShipTo

+--------------+------------+-------------------+------------+
| ARDivisionNo | CustomerNo |   CustomerName    | ShipToCode |
+--------------+------------+-------------------+------------+
|           00 | 1234567    | Test Customer     |          1 |
|           00 | 1234567    | Test Customer     |          2 |
|           00 | 1234567    | Test Customer     |          3 |
|           00 | ARACODE    | ARACODE Customer  |          1 |
|           00 | ARACODE    | ARACODE Customer  |          2 |
|           01 | CBE1EX     | Normal Customer   |          1 |
|           02 | ZOCDOC     | Normal Customer-2 |          1 |
+--------------+------------+-------------------+------------+

(ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo,ShipToCode) form a primary key for this table.

If you notice first 3 rows belong to same customer (Test Customer), who has different ShipToCodes: 1, 2 and 3. Similar is the case with second customer (ARACODE Customer). Each of Normal Customer and Normal Customer-2 has only 1 record with a single ShipToCode.

Now, I would like to get result querying on this table, where I will have only 1 record per customer. So, for any customer, where there are more than 1 records, I would like to keep the record with highest value for ShipToCode.

I tried various things:

(1) I can easily get the list of customers with only one record in table.

(2) With following query, I am able to get the list of all the customers, who have more than one record in the table.

[Query-1]

SELECT ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo
FROM AR_Customer_ShipTo 
GROUP BY ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

(3) Now, in order to select proper ShipToCode for each record returned by above query, I am not able to figure out, how to iterate through all the records returned by above query.

If I do something like:

[Query-2]

SELECT TOP 1 ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo, CustomerName, ShipToCode  
FROM AR_Customer_ShipTo 
WHERE ARDivisionNo = '00' and CustomerNo = '1234567'
ORDER BY ShipToCode DESC

Then I can get the appropriate record for (00-1234567-Test Customer). Hence, if I can use all the results from query-1 in the above query (query-2), then I can get the desired single records for customers with more than one record. This can be combined with results from point (1) to achieve the desired end result.

Again, this can be easier than approach I am following. Please let me know how can I do this.

[Note: I have to do this using SQL queries only. I cannot use stored procedures, as I am going to execute this thing finally using 'Scribe Insight', which only allows me to write queries.]

Answer 1

Sample SQL FIDDLE

1) Use CTE to get max ship code value record based on ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo for each Customers

WITH cte AS (
  SELECT*, 
     row_number() OVER(PARTITION BY ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo ORDER BY ShipToCode desc) AS [rn]
  FROM t
)
Select * from cte WHERE [rn] = 1

2) To Delete the record use Delete query instead of Select and change Where Clause to rn > 1. Sample SQL FIDDLE

WITH cte AS (
  SELECT*, 
     row_number() OVER(PARTITION BY ARDivisionNo, CustomerNo ORDER BY ShipToCode desc) AS [rn]
  FROM t
)
Delete from cte WHERE [rn] > 1;

select * from t;