Mysql query to find distinct rows shows incorrect result - mysql

Question

I wish to find the total number of distinct records in a table.
I have a table with the following columns
id, name, product, rating, manufacturer price
This has around 128 rows with some duplicates based on different column names.
I only want to select distinct rows:
select distinct name, product, rating, maufacturer, price from table
This returns 47 rows
For pagination purposes, I need to find the total number of distinct records, so I have another satatement:
select distinct count(name), product, rating, maufacturer, price from table
But this returns 128 instead of 47.
How can I get the total number of distinct rows? Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

You have the distinct and count reversed.
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT column_name) FROM table_name
Also, I would drop the extra fields when counting, your results will be unexpected for those other fields.

Answer 2

It is not quite clear if you want to get the count in the SAME query with the results or if you want to run a different query. Here go both solutions. In the result as a new column:
select distinct name, product, rating, manufacturer, price, (
select count(*) from (
select distinct name, product, rating, manufacturer, price from table1
) as resultCount) as resultCount
from table1
Notice the previous solution will repeat the count(*) for each row, which is not very efficient, not even visually appealing. Try running two queries one getting the actual data and the other one to get the amount of records in the table that match that data:
select distinct name, product, rating, manufacturer, price from table1
select count(*) from (
select distinct name, product, rating, manufacturer, price from table1
) as result
Hope this helps

Answer 3

Try adding GROUP BY name, product, rating, maufacturer, price clause

Answer 4

It would require running your actual query TWICE... an INNER for distinct and then get the count of those as a single row returned, and then join that to the original select distinct...
select distinct
t1.product,
t1.rating,
t1.maufacturer,
t1.price,
JustTheCount.DistCnt
from
table t1,
( select count(*) as DistCnt
from ( select distinct
t2.product,
t2.rating,
t2.maufacturer,
t2.price
from
table t2 )
) JustTheCount

Answer 5

In the following query, you're getting rows with distinct names since the DISTINCT clause precedes the name column:
SELECT DISTINCT name, product, rating, maufacturer, price FROM table
However, to get the count of the same records, use the following format:
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name) FROM table
Notice that DISTINCT goes inside of the COUNT function so that you're counting the distinct names. You probably don't want to include the other columns in the count query because they will be a random sample from the set. Of course, if you want a random sample, then include them.
Most applications will run the count query first, followed by the query to return the results. Also keep in mind that COUNT(*) is only an estimate, and the value may differ from the actual number of records returned.
SELECT DISTINCT COUNT(name), product FROM table isn't even a valid query in MySQL 4.x. You can't mix aggregate and non-aggregate columns. IN 5.x, it'll run, but the values for the non aggregate columns will be a random sample from the set.

Answer 6

At the risk of sparking some flames here.. you could always use:
SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS as the first part of your SQL. This is very mysql specific though.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/information-functions.html
mysql> SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS * FROM tbl_name
-> WHERE id > 100 LIMIT 10;
mysql> SELECT FOUND_ROWS();