345
votes

If I have a MySQL table looking something like this:

company_name    action  pagecount
-------------------------------
Company A       PRINT   3
Company A       PRINT   2
Company A       PRINT   3
Company B       EMAIL   
Company B       PRINT   2
Company B       PRINT   2
Company B       PRINT   1
Company A       PRINT   3

Is it possible to run a MySQL query to get output like this:

company_name    EMAIL   PRINT 1 pages   PRINT 2 pages   PRINT 3 pages
-------------------------------------------------------------
CompanyA        0       0               1               3
CompanyB        1       1               2               0

The idea is that pagecount can vary so the output column amount should reflect that, one column for each action/pagecount pair and then number of hits per company_name. I'm not sure if this is called a pivot table but someone suggested that?

10
It's called pivoting and it's much, much quicker to do this transformation outside of SQL.N.B.
Excel rips through things like this, it's really difficult in MySQL as there is no "CROSSTAB" operator :(Dave Rix
Yes it's currently done by hand in Excel and we are trying to automate it.peku
Here i found step by step example: how to automate pivot tables. and thisDevid G
@giannischristofakis - it really depends on what you and your coworkers deem simpler. Technology caught up quite a bit since I posted the comment (4 years) so it's totally up to what you feel is better - be it in application or SQL. For example, at my work we deal with similar problem but we're combining both SQL and in-app approach. Basically, I can't help you other than giving opinionated answer and that's not what you need :)N.B.

10 Answers

261
votes

This basically is a pivot table.

A nice tutorial on how to achieve this can be found here: http://www.artfulsoftware.com/infotree/qrytip.php?id=78

I advise reading this post and adapt this solution to your needs.

Update

After the link above is currently not available any longer I feel obliged to provide some additional information for all of you searching for mysql pivot answers in here. It really had a vast amount of information, and I won't put everything from there in here (even more since I just don't want to copy their vast knowledge), but I'll give some advice on how to deal with pivot tables the sql way generally with the example from peku who asked the question in the first place.

Maybe the link comes back soon, I'll keep an eye out for it.

The spreadsheet way...

Many people just use a tool like MSExcel, OpenOffice or other spreadsheet-tools for this purpose. This is a valid solution, just copy the data over there and use the tools the GUI offer to solve this.

But... this wasn't the question, and it might even lead to some disadvantages, like how to get the data into the spreadsheet, problematic scaling and so on.

The SQL way...

Given his table looks something like this:

CREATE TABLE `test_pivot` (
  `pid` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `company_name` varchar(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  `action` varchar(16) DEFAULT NULL,
  `pagecount` bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`pid`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM;

Now look into his/her desired table:

company_name    EMAIL   PRINT 1 pages   PRINT 2 pages   PRINT 3 pages
-------------------------------------------------------------
CompanyA        0       0               1               3
CompanyB        1       1               2               0

The rows (EMAIL, PRINT x pages) resemble conditions. The main grouping is by company_name.

In order to set up the conditions this rather shouts for using the CASE-statement. In order to group by something, well, use ... GROUP BY.

The basic SQL providing this pivot can look something like this:

SELECT  P.`company_name`,
    COUNT(
        CASE 
            WHEN P.`action`='EMAIL' 
            THEN 1 
            ELSE NULL 
        END
    ) AS 'EMAIL',
    COUNT(
        CASE 
            WHEN P.`action`='PRINT' AND P.`pagecount` = '1' 
            THEN P.`pagecount` 
            ELSE NULL 
        END
    ) AS 'PRINT 1 pages',
    COUNT(
        CASE 
            WHEN P.`action`='PRINT' AND P.`pagecount` = '2' 
            THEN P.`pagecount` 
            ELSE NULL 
        END
    ) AS 'PRINT 2 pages',
    COUNT(
        CASE 
            WHEN P.`action`='PRINT' AND P.`pagecount` = '3' 
            THEN P.`pagecount` 
            ELSE NULL 
        END
    ) AS 'PRINT 3 pages'
FROM    test_pivot P
GROUP BY P.`company_name`;

This should provide the desired result very fast. The major downside for this approach, the more rows you want in your pivot table, the more conditions you need to define in your SQL statement.

This can be dealt with, too, therefore people tend to use prepared statements, routines, counters and such.

Some additional links about this topic:

99
votes

My solution is in T-SQL without any pivots:

SELECT
    CompanyName,  
    SUM(CASE WHEN (action='EMAIL') THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Email,
    SUM(CASE WHEN (action='PRINT' AND pagecount=1) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Print1Pages,
    SUM(CASE WHEN (action='PRINT' AND pagecount=2) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Print2Pages,
    SUM(CASE WHEN (action='PRINT' AND pagecount=3) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Print3Pages
FROM 
    Company
GROUP BY 
    CompanyName
77
votes

For MySQL you can directly put conditions in SUM() function and it will be evaluated as Boolean 0 or 1 and thus you can have your count based on your criteria without using IF/CASE statements

SELECT
    company_name,  
    SUM(action = 'EMAIL')AS Email,
    SUM(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 1)AS Print1Pages,
    SUM(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 2)AS Print2Pages,
    SUM(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 3)AS Print3Pages
FROM t
GROUP BY company_name

DEMO

43
votes

For dynamic pivot, use GROUP_CONCAT with CONCAT. The GROUP_CONCAT function concatenates strings from a group into one string with various options.

SET @sql = NULL;
SELECT
    GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT
    CONCAT(
      'SUM(CASE WHEN action = "',
      action,'"  AND ', 
           (CASE WHEN pagecount IS NOT NULL 
           THEN CONCAT("pagecount = ",pagecount) 
           ELSE pagecount IS NULL END),
      ' THEN 1 ELSE 0 end) AS ',
      action, IFNULL(pagecount,'')

    )
  )
INTO @sql
FROM
  t;

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT company_name, ', @sql, ' 
                  FROM t 
                   GROUP BY company_name');

PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

DEMO HERE

26
votes

A stardard-SQL version using boolean logic:

SELECT company_name
     , COUNT(action = 'EMAIL' OR NULL) AS "Email"
     , COUNT(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 1 OR NULL) AS "Print 1 pages"
     , COUNT(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 2 OR NULL) AS "Print 2 pages"
     , COUNT(action = 'PRINT' AND pagecount = 3 OR NULL) AS "Print 3 pages"
FROM   tbl
GROUP  BY company_name;

SQL Fiddle.

How?

TRUE OR NULL yields TRUE.
FALSE OR NULL yields NULL.
NULL OR NULL yields NULL.
And COUNT only counts non-null values. Voilá.

14
votes

Correct answer is:

select table_record_id,
group_concat(if(value_name='note', value_text, NULL)) as note
,group_concat(if(value_name='hire_date', value_text, NULL)) as hire_date
,group_concat(if(value_name='termination_date', value_text, NULL)) as termination_date
,group_concat(if(value_name='department', value_text, NULL)) as department
,group_concat(if(value_name='reporting_to', value_text, NULL)) as reporting_to
,group_concat(if(value_name='shift_start_time', value_text, NULL)) as shift_start_time
,group_concat(if(value_name='shift_end_time', value_text, NULL)) as shift_end_time
from other_value
where table_name = 'employee'
and is_active = 'y'
and is_deleted = 'n'
GROUP BY table_record_id
9
votes

There is a tool called MySQL Pivot table generator, it can help you create web based pivot table that you can later export to excel(if you like). it can work if your data is in a single table or in several tables .

All you need to do is to specify the data source of the columns (it supports dynamic columns), rows , the values in the body of the table and table relationship (if there are any) MySQL Pivot Table

The home page of this tool is http://mysqlpivottable.net

3
votes
select t3.name, sum(t3.prod_A) as Prod_A, sum(t3.prod_B) as Prod_B, sum(t3.prod_C) as    Prod_C, sum(t3.prod_D) as Prod_D, sum(t3.prod_E) as Prod_E  
from
(select t2.name as name, 
case when t2.prodid = 1 then t2.counts
else 0 end  prod_A, 

case when t2.prodid = 2 then t2.counts
else 0 end prod_B,

case when t2.prodid = 3 then t2.counts
else 0 end prod_C,

case when t2.prodid = 4 then t2.counts
else 0 end prod_D, 

case when t2.prodid = "5" then t2.counts
else 0 end prod_E

from 
(SELECT partners.name as name, sales.products_id as prodid, count(products.name) as counts
FROM test.sales left outer join test.partners on sales.partners_id = partners.id
left outer join test.products on sales.products_id = products.id 
where sales.partners_id = partners.id and sales.products_id = products.id group by partners.name, prodid) t2) t3

group by t3.name ;
0
votes

One option would be combining use of CASE..WHEN statement is redundant within an aggregation for MySQL Database, and considering the needed query generation dynamically along with getting proper column title for the result set as in the following code block :

SET @sql = NULL;

SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(
             CONCAT('SUM( `action` = ''', action, '''',pc0,' ) AS ',action,pc1)
       )
  INTO @sql
  FROM 
  ( 
   SELECT DISTINCT `action`, 
          IF(`pagecount` IS NULL,'',CONCAT('page',`pagecount`)) AS pc1,
          IF(`pagecount` IS NULL,'',CONCAT(' AND `pagecount` = ', pagecount, '')) AS pc0
     FROM `tab` 
    ORDER BY CONCAT(action,pc0) 
  ) t;

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT company_name,',@sql,' FROM `tab` GROUP BY company_name'); 
SELECT @sql; 

PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

Demo

0
votes
SELECT company_name, SUM(CASE WHEN ACTION = 'Email' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS "Email",
SUM(CASE WHEN ACTION = 'Print' AND pagecount = 1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS "print 1 PAGE",
SUM(CASE WHEN ACTION = 'Print' AND pagecount = 2 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS "print 2 PAGE",
SUM(CASE WHEN ACTION = 'Print' AND pagecount = 3 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS "print 2 PAGE"
FROM test1 GROUP BY company_name;