SQL - How to select a row having a column with max value

Solution 1:

Keywords like TOP, LIMIT, ROWNUM, ...etc are database dependent. Please read this article for more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Select_(SQL)#Result_limits

Oracle: ROWNUM could be used.

select * from (select * from table 
order by value desc, date_column) 
where rownum = 1;

Answering the question more specifically:

select high_val, my_key
from (select high_val, my_key
      from mytable
      where something = 'avalue'
      order by high_val desc)
where rownum <= 1

Solution 2:

Analytics! This avoids having to access the table twice:

SELECT DISTINCT
       FIRST_VALUE(date_col)  OVER (ORDER BY value_col DESC, date_col ASC),
       FIRST_VALUE(value_col) OVER (ORDER BY value_col DESC, date_col ASC)
FROM   mytable;