php - Mysql query problem

Question

I have a problem with my mysql query.

My database:

sections
id
section_name

grades
id
user_id
section_id
date
grade

I want my data to be shown like this:

Section_name grade

But i wat want the grade to be the closest to todays date... This is what i have so far but it doesn't show the latest grade. instead it orders by id (I guess)

SELECT *

                        FROM 
                        grades, 
                        sections 

                        WHERE 
                        sections.id = grades.section_id

                        AND
                        grades.user_id = '.$id.'

                        GROUP BY grades.section_id

                        ORDER BY grades.date DESC

EDIT: the $id variable is the user id from a session.

Answer 1

My solution involves the use of subquery to get the id of the latest grade and then passing it up to the query which then joins both sections and grades table to return section_name and grade. Please consider this more as a psuedocode than a valid sql query as I dont have time to test it. Might come back later to edit it

SELECT section_name, grade FROM sections, grades WHERE sections.id = grades.id AND grades.id = (SELECT id FROM grades WHERE section_id = '$Id' ORDER by date DESC LIMIT 1)