Deleting equal rows in mySQL 5.7.9? - mysql

Question

I have this table in mysql called ts1
+----------+-------------+---------------+
| position | email | date_of_birth |
+----------+-------------+---------------+
| 3 | NULL | 1987-09-03 |
| 1 | NULL | 1982-03-26 |
| 2 | Sam#gmail | 1976-10-03 |
| 2 | Sam#gmail | 1976-10-03 |
+----------+-------------+---------------+
I want to drop the equal rows using ALTER IGNORE.
I have tried
ALTER IGNORE TABLE ts1 ADD UNIQUE INDEX inx (position, email, date_of_birth);
and
ALTER IGNORE TABLE ts1 ADD UNIQUE(position, email, date_of_birth);
In both cases I get
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 'IGNORE TABLE ts1 ADD UNIQUE(position, email, date_of_birth)' at line 1
I'm using mySQL 5.7.9. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

To do it inline against the table, given just the columns you show consider the below. To do it in a new table as suggested by Strawberry, see my pastie link under comments.
create table thing
( position int not null,
email varchar(100) null,
dob date not null
);
insert thing(position,email,dob) values
(3,null,'1987-09-03'),(1,null,'1982-03-26'),
(2,'SamIAm#gmail.com','1976-10-03'),(2,'SamIAm#gmail.com','1976-10-03');
select * from thing;
+----------+------------------+------------+
| position | email | dob |
+----------+------------------+------------+
| 3 | NULL | 1987-09-03 |
| 1 | NULL | 1982-03-26 |
| 2 | SamIAm#gmail.com | 1976-10-03 |
| 2 | SamIAm#gmail.com | 1976-10-03 |
+----------+------------------+------------+
alter table thing add id int auto_increment primary key;
Delete with a join pattern, deleting subsequent dupes (that have a larger id number)
delete thing
from thing
join
( select position,email,dob,min(id) as theMin,count(*) as theCount
from thing
group by position,email,dob
having theCount>1
) xxx -- alias
on thing.position=xxx.position and thing.email=xxx.email and thing.dob=xxx.dob and thing.id>xxx.theMin
-- 1 row affected
select * from thing;
+----------+------------------+------------+----+
| position | email | dob | id |
+----------+------------------+------------+----+
| 3 | NULL | 1987-09-03 | 1 |
| 1 | NULL | 1982-03-26 | 2 |
| 2 | SamIAm#gmail.com | 1976-10-03 | 3 |
+----------+------------------+------------+----+
Add the unique index
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX `thing_my_composite` ON thing (position,email,dob); -- forbid dupes hereafter
View current table schema
show create table thing;
CREATE TABLE `thing` (
`position` int(11) NOT NULL,
`email` varchar(100) DEFAULT NULL,
`dob` date NOT NULL,
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `thing_my_composite` (`position`,`email`,`dob`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;