Are there any alternative methods or best practices for handling duplicate values in a MySQL query without using the DISTINCT keyword?

When retrieving data from a MySQL database, duplicate values may be returned in the result set. One common way to handle this is by using the DISTINCT keyword in the query to eliminate duplicate rows. However, an alternative method is to use GROUP BY clause along with aggregate functions like COUNT, SUM, AVG to group the data and remove duplicates. This approach can be useful when you want to perform some calculations on the duplicate values. 

// Connect to the database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Query to retrieve data with duplicate values
$query = "SELECT column1, column2, COUNT(*) as count FROM table GROUP BY column1, column2";

// Execute the query
$result = $mysqli->query($query);

// Fetch and display the results
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    echo $row['column1'] . " | " . $row['column2'] . " | " . $row['count'] . "<br>";
}

// Close the connection
$mysqli->close();

Keywords

MySQL query duplicate values alternative methods DISTINCT

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