Syntax error How to count distinct values in MySQL?

How to count distinct values in MySQL?



To count distinct values, you can use distinct in aggregate function count().

The syntax is as follows −

select count(distinct yourColumnName) as anyVariableName from yourTableName;

To understand the above concept, let us create a table. The following is the query to create a table −

mysql> create table DistinctDemo
   −> (
   −> Name varchar(200)
   −> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.58 sec)

For our example, let us insert duplicate records in the table. The query to insert records is as follows −

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('Johnson');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.10 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('Johnson');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)

mysql> insert into DistinctDemo values('Johnson');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.10 sec)

Display all records with the help of select statement. The query to display all records is as follows −

mysql> select *from DistinctDemo;

The following is the output displaying some duplicate records −

+---------+
| Name    |
+---------+
| John    |
| Sam     |
| John    |
| Johnson |
| John    |
| Johnson |
| Sam     |
| Johnson |
+---------+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query that can be used to count distinct values from the table −

mysql> select count(distinct Name) as DistinctValues from DistinctDemo;

The following is the output −

+----------------+
| DistinctValues |
+----------------+
|              3 |
+----------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

The result i3 tells that we have 3 distinct values in the table.

Updated on: 2019-07-30T22:30:24+05:30

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