Mysql – Using ‘distinct’ in a MySQL query

mysql

I have the following query.

SELECT p.author_name, p.author_id,
DISTINCT p.topic_id, t.title
FROM `ibf_posts` p, `ibf_topics` t
WHERE p.topic_id = t.tid
ORDER BY pid DESC
LIMIT 8"

When I run it, I get the following MySQL Error:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'DISTINCT p.topic_id, t.title FROM `ibf_posts` p, `ibf_topics` t WHERE p' at line 1

if I remove the DISTINCT keyword, then the query works without a problem.

What am I doing wrong?

This scheme is from Invision Power Board post and topic table. I am trying to get the title of the last 8 topics which has the newest posts. In the list of top latest posts, I don't want the same topic to appear more than once. I want a unique list of titles.

table: ibf_posts
-pid
-author_name
-author_id
-topic_id

table: ibf_topics
-tid
-title

tid is same as topic_id

Best Solution

It's

SELECT DISTINCT ...

You can't specify DISTINCT only for a single column; it only works for keeping complete duplicate records out of the result set.

Related Solutions

Mysql – concatenate multiple MySQL rows into one field

You can use GROUP_CONCAT:

SELECT person_id,
   GROUP_CONCAT(hobbies SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Ludwig stated in his comment, you can add the DISTINCT operator to avoid duplicates:

SELECT person_id,
   GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT hobbies SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Jan stated in their comment, you can also sort the values before imploding it using ORDER BY:

SELECT person_id, 
       GROUP_CONCAT(hobbies ORDER BY hobbies ASC SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Dag stated in his comment, there is a 1024 byte limit on the result. To solve this, run this query before your query:

SET group_concat_max_len = 2048;

Of course, you can change 2048 according to your needs. To calculate and assign the value:

SET group_concat_max_len = CAST(
                     (SELECT SUM(LENGTH(hobbies)) + COUNT(*) * LENGTH(', ')
                           FROM peoples_hobbies
                           GROUP BY person_id) AS UNSIGNED);

Mysql – How to output MySQL query results in CSV format

From Save MySQL query results into a text or CSV file:

SELECT order_id,product_name,qty
FROM orders
WHERE foo = 'bar'
INTO OUTFILE '/var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';

Note: That syntax may need to be reordered to

SELECT order_id,product_name,qty
INTO OUTFILE '/var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
FROM orders
WHERE foo = 'bar';

in more recent versions of MySQL.

Using this command, columns names will not be exported.

Also note that /var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv will be on the server that is running MySQL. The user that the MySQL process is running under must have permissions to write to the directory chosen, or the command will fail.

If you want to write output to your local machine from a remote server (especially a hosted or virtualize machine such as Heroku or Amazon RDS), this solution is not suitable.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Mysql – concatenate multiple MySQL rows into one field

Mysql – How to output MySQL query results in CSV format

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