Question

I’m trying to build a SQL that will return the total amount of file for all the events.

DB:

id | name    | filename1 | filename2
1    event1    1.jpg       2.jpg
2    event2    1.jpg       Null

If you look at this scenario it should return “You have 3 files” but I have no idea how to make the SQL.

I’m using mySQL.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can unpivot or use UNION ALL on the data in the filename1 and filename2 fields and then get a total count. The UNION ALL takes the data from the multiple columns and converts it into multiple rows:

select count(files) Total
from
(
    select name, filename1 as files
    from yourtable
    union all
    select name, filename2
    from yourtable
) src

See SQL Fiddle with Demo