Question

I have a column that takes user names. How can I count the number of instances of a users name. For example I have 10 rows and in column username i want to count all names that show up multiple times. I would like to build a list of the top contributors to my database. So if username alex shows up 5 times and jeff shows up 3 and april shows up 2 times i will count this and from that I can build my list.

Answer 1

Try GROUP BY:

SELECT username, COUNT(*) AS user_count
FROM yourtable
GROUP BY username
ORDER BY user_count DESC