Get MySQL DISTINCT to work correctly if the records contain whitespace?

To get distinct including whitespace, you can use below syntax −

SELECT DISTINCT replace(yourColumnName,' ','') FROM yourTableName;

Let us first create a table:

mysql>create table DemoTable
(
   Id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   Name varchar(20)
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.63 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('John ');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values(' John ');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.09 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('Carol');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.22 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values(' Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('Mike ');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)
mysql>insert into DemoTable(Name) values('David');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)

Following is the query to display all records from the table using select statement:

mysql>select *from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+----+-----------+
| Id | Name      |
+----+-----------+
| 1  | John      |
| 2  | John      |
| 3  | John      |
| 4  | Sam       |
| 5  | Carol     |
| 6  | Sam       |
| 7  | Mike      |
| 8  | David     |
+----+-----------+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to get distinct including whitespace:

mysql>SELECT DISTINCT replace(Name,' ','') FROM DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+----------------------+
| replace(Name,' ','') |
+----------------------+
| John                 |
| Sam                  |
| Carol                |
| Mike                 |
| David                |
+----------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

George John

Updated on: 2019-07-30T22:30:25+05:30

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