MySQL GROUP BY statement

GROUP BY statements group result sets based on one or more columns.

We can use COUNT, SUM, AVG, etc. on the grouped columns.

GROUP BY syntax 

SELECT column_name, function(column_name)
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name operator value
GROUP BY column_name;

Example demonstration

This section example uses the following table structure and data, which we can import into the database before we can use it. 

SET NAMES utf8;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;

-- ----------------------------
--  Table structure for `employee_tbl`
-- ----------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `employee_tbl`;
CREATE TABLE `employee_tbl` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `name` char(10) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `date` datetime NOT NULL,
  `singin` tinyint(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' COMMENT '登录次数',
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

-- ----------------------------
--  Records of `employee_tbl`
-- ----------------------------
BEGIN;
INSERT INTO `employee_tbl` VALUES ('1', '小明', '2016-04-22 15:25:33', '1'), ('2', '小王', '2016-04-20 15:25:47', '3'), ('3', '小丽', '2016-04-19 15:26:02', '2'), ('4', '小王', '2016-04-07 15:26:14', '4'), ('5', '小明', '2016-04-11 15:26:40', '4'), ('6', '小明', '2016-04-04 15:26:54', '2');
COMMIT;

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;

After the import is successful, execute the following SQL statement: 

mysql> set names utf8;
mysql> SELECT * FROM employee_tbl;
+----+--------+---------------------+--------+
| id | name   | date                | singin |
+----+--------+---------------------+--------+
|  1 | 小明 | 2016-04-22 15:25:33 |      1 |
|  2 | 小王 | 2016-04-20 15:25:47 |      3 |
|  3 | 小丽 | 2016-04-19 15:26:02 |      2 |
|  4 | 小王 | 2016-04-07 15:26:14 |      4 |
|  5 | 小明 | 2016-04-11 15:26:40 |      4 |
|  6 | 小明 | 2016-04-04 15:26:54 |      2 |
+----+--------+---------------------+--------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Next, we use the GROUP BY statement to group the data sheets by name and count how many records each person has: 

mysql> SELECT name, COUNT(*) FROM   employee_tbl GROUP BY name;
+--------+----------+
| name   | COUNT(*) |
+--------+----------+
| 小丽 |        1 |
| 小明 |        3 |
| 小王 |        2 |
+--------+----------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)

Use WITH ROLLUP

WITH ROLLUP enables the same statistics to be performed on the basis of grouping statistics (SUM, AVG, COUNT...) ）。

For example, we group the above data sheets by name and count the number of times each person logs in: 

mysql> SELECT name, SUM(singin) as singin_count FROM  employee_tbl GROUP BY name WITH ROLLUP;
+--------+--------------+
| name   | singin_count |
+--------+--------------+
| 小丽 |            2 |
| 小明 |            7 |
| 小王 |            7 |
| NULL   |           16 |
+--------+--------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Where NULL is logged represents the number of logins for everyone.

We can use coalesce to set a name that can replace NUll, the coalesce syntax: 

select coalesce(a,b,c);

Parameter description: select b if a is null, select c if b is null, select a if a!?null, and return to null if a b c is null.

In the following example, if the name is empty, we use the total instead: 

mysql> SELECT coalesce(name, '总数'), SUM(singin) as singin_count FROM  employee_tbl GROUP BY name WITH ROLLUP;
+--------------------------+--------------+
| coalesce(name, '总数') | singin_count |
+--------------------------+--------------+
| 小丽                   |            2 |
| 小明                   |            7 |
| 小王                   |            7 |
| 总数                   |           16 |
+--------------------------+--------------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)