Question

What is the purpose of the following clause in a select statement?

GROUP BY

Answer 1

The GROUP BY clause is used in the SELECT statement, to divide the table into groups i.e combines all records that have identical values in a particular field.

Grouping can be done by a common column name or with aggregate functions in which case the aggregate produces a value for each.

For example:

mysql> SELECT GENDER, COUNT(*) FROM STUDENT GROUP BY GENDER;

OUTPUT:

GENDER COUNT(*)

MALE 20

FEMALE 15