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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T18:13:41+00:00

In SQL, if we use Group By without Count(*) or Sum(), etc, then the

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In SQL, if we use Group By without Count(*) or Sum(), etc, then the result is as follows:

mysql>  select * from sentGifts;
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
| sentID | whenSent   | fromID | toID | trytryWhen          | giftID |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
|      1 | 2010-04-24 |    123 |  456 | 2010-04-24 01:52:20 |    100 |
|      2 | 2010-04-24 |    123 | 4568 | 2010-04-24 01:56:04 |    100 |
|      3 | 2010-04-24 |    123 | NULL | NULL                |      1 |
|      4 | 2010-04-24 |   NULL |  111 | 2010-04-24 03:10:42 |      2 |
|      5 | 2010-03-03 |     11 |   22 | 2010-03-03 00:00:00 |      6 |
|      6 | 2010-04-24 |     11 |  222 | 2010-04-24 03:54:49 |      6 |
|      7 | 2010-04-24 |      1 |    2 | 2010-04-24 03:58:45 |      6 |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)


mysql>  select *, count(*) from sentGifts group by whenSent;
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
| sentID | whenSent   | fromID | toID | trytryWhen          | giftID | count(*) |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
|      5 | 2010-03-03 |     11 |   22 | 2010-03-03 00:00:00 |      6 |        1 |
|      1 | 2010-04-24 |    123 |  456 | 2010-04-24 01:52:20 |    100 |        6 |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)


mysql>  select * from sentGifts group by whenSent;
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
| sentID | whenSent   | fromID | toID | trytryWhen          | giftID |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
|      5 | 2010-03-03 |     11 |   22 | 2010-03-03 00:00:00 |      6 |
|      1 | 2010-04-24 |    123 |  456 | 2010-04-24 01:52:20 |    100 |
+--------+------------+--------+------+---------------------+--------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Only 1 row is returned per “group”. What does it mean when there is no “Count(*)”, etc when using “Group By”, and what are it uses? thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    By default, MySQL will return the value of the first row it encounters when executing the query. It’s like it uses a default aggregate of arbitrary.

    This is useful if you have a long column list where you know most of them are repeating, for example:

    Login    LongName             City        PhoneNr      Time
Dude     Mr. Dude the 2nd     Jerk Town   12345678     13:01
Dude     Mr. Dude the 2nd     Jerk Town   12345678     13:05
Dude     Mr. Dude the 2nd     Jerk Town   12345678     13:12

    Here you could group by login:

    select LongName, City, PhoneNr, max(Time) from Logins group by login

    Because you know that Long Name depends on Login, this will work as expected. All other DBMS systems I know of require you to explicitly specify group by login, LongName, City, PhoneNr. Even in MySQL that is considered good practice.

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