So you can just

$sth_max_score->execute();
# no loop here:
my @max_score = $sth_max_score->fetchrow_array();
# now $max_score[0] holds your desired value
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There's a prettier solution:

$sth->execute();
$sth->bind_columns(\my $max);
$sth->fetch;
# $max holds the value here
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  my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT MAX(M.Score) as score FROM Regions M
+");
  die "can't blah ..." unless $sth && $sth->execute();
  my $score = (($sth->fetchrow_hashref) || {})->{score};
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-David

This query doesn't look right to me: "SELECT MAX(M.Score) FROM Regions M". Specifically that stray "M" on the end doesn't seem like proper syntax. Since you're specifying "M.Score" as what you want, I'm guessing "M" is a table name. Maybe you want a comma between "Regions" and "M"? It really doesn't die when you try to prepare or execute that?

Update: Oh yes, I have seen table aliases before, thanks for the many reminders. Since I hardly use them myself, I'm not used to seeing them. Sorry about the confusion.

That part of what the OP is doing is ok. "M" is being used as a table alias. SQL syntax supports table aliases either with or without the optional keyword "AS", so these two are the same, they both let you refer to "Regions" as "M":

    SELECT M.foo FROM Regions AS M;
    SELECT M.foo FROM Regions M;
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As a matter of style I would recomend using the "as" consistently. It reads better.

BTW, "Regions as M"? Maybe there is a reason to use M for the Regions table, but I would expect R or (in case the table was used several times in the query) something like R_old, R_new, R1, R2, .... In either case I do not see why would you use an alias in a query that only includes one table. I guess a matter of style again :-)

Jenda


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That's called a "table alias" in SQL and is perfectly valid.

You may like to read the SQL99 standard.

-David

The SQL works fine with MySQL, the M is a table alias, the syntax is ... FROM table1 alias1, table2 alias2, ... with the alias$n being optional