Re: largest number of entries

At 3:40 PM -0700 10/8/00, Tyler Longren wrote:

Hey everybody, Let's say that I have a mysql table, inside this table, there is a field named 'name'. And let's say there are 10 different names in that field, each in a different row. If the name 'Tyler' is in there 5 times, the name 'Ronald' is in there 9 times, the name 'Vic' is in there 12 times, the name 'Kristin' is in there 6 times, and the name 'Paul' is in there 8 times. That's 5 names, the other 5 names in there are only listed 1 time. How could I get the 5 highest entries? which would be: Vic - 12 Ronald - 9 Paul - 8 Kristin - 6 Tyler - 5 ??? That was pretty darn unclear, so if you don't understand what I mean, just forget about it. :)

select name, count(name) as n from your_table_name_here group by count(name) order by n desc limit 5 should work (untested, though). Note that (at least in older MySQL versions) you _must_ user 'count(name)' in the group clause, instead of the alias 'n'. -steve +--- "They've got a cherry pie there, that'll kill ya" ------------------+

| Steve Edberg                           University of California, Davis |
| sbedberg@ucdavis.edu                               Computer Consultant |
| http://aesric.ucdavis.edu/                  http://pgfsun.ucdavis.edu/ |

+-------------------------------------- FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper ---+