How to use COUNT with multiple columns?

Question

How to use multiple columns with a single COUNT?

Assume that there is a table demo with these data:

id |  col1  |  col2  |    
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*  
1  |'alice' | 'book1'|  
2  |'bob'   | 'book1'|  
3  |'alice' | 'book2'|  
4  |'alice' | 'book3'|

I want to find the count of all the combination of user and book name.

I have tried that if i run with distinct, everything is alright.
select count(distinct col1, col2) from demo

However, when i remove distinct, then the sql statement will not be passed in mysql console.
select count(col1, col2) from demo

Question is how to use COUNT with multiple columns in MySql?

Answer 1

There are several things you can count with COUNT() function:

• count(*) : rows
• count(col1) : rows where col1 is not null
• count(col2) : rows where col2 is not null
• count(distinct col1) : distinct col1 values.
• count(distinct col2) : distinct col2 values.
• count(distinct col1, col2) : distinct (col1, col2) values combinations.

Tested at SQLfiddle:

    select 
        count(*)             as count_rows,
        count(col1)          as count_1,
        count(col2)          as count_2,
        count(distinct col1) as count_distinct_1,
        count(distinct col2) as count_distinct_2,
        count(distinct col1, col2) as count_distinct_1_2
    from demo ;

But count(col1, col2) is not valid syntax:

select 
    count(col1, col2) 
from demo ;

gives an error:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'col2) from demo' at line 2.

Answer 2

Obviously, COUNT(DISTINCT) with multiple columns counts unique combinations of the specified columns' values. However, one other important point is that a tuple is counted only if none of the individual values in the tuple is null. If that last aspect of the behaviour is what you are trying to achieve, you could emulate it using a conditional inside COUNT. It could be either the standard-compliant CASE:

SELECT
  COUNT(CASE WHEN col1 IS NOT NULL AND col2 IS NOT NULL THEN 1 END)
FROM
  demo
;

or the MySQL-specific IF function:

SELECT
  COUNT(IF(col1 IS NOT NULL AND col2 IS NOT NULL, 1, NULL))
FROM
  demo
;

where instead of the 1 you can put any non-null constant. A row will be counted only if neither col1 nor col2 is null.

The obvious flaw of this workaround (either variation) is that it is clearly rather unwieldy and will become ridiculously long very quickly as you add more columns to account for.

It is possible to shorten the expression somewhat by choosing a less clear syntax. In particular, you could replace the COUNT with SUM and treat the predicates as numbers (1/0) in an arithmetic expression:

SELECT
  SUM( (col1 IS NOT NULL) * (col2 IS NOT NULL) )
FROM
  demo
;

In the context of the arithmetic operator * the logical result of the IS NOT NULL operator is implicitly converted to a number, 1 for True, 0 for False. With only 1s and 0s the * operator works as an equivalent of the logical AND: the final result will be 1 (True) only if each operand is 1; otherwise the result will be 0 (False). Adding up (SUM) the 1s is equivalent to counting the truths.

So again, the above statement will count only the rows where neither col1 nor col2 is null.

Answer 3

select count(*) from (select distinct col1, col2 from demo) as distinctAll