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  1. MariaDB Server
  2. MDEV-25957

Order is not kept when using DISTINCT + ORDER BY in GROUP_CONCAT

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Details

    • Bug
    • Status: Open (View Workflow)
    • Major
    • Resolution: Unresolved
    • 10.5.8
    • None
    • None
    • CentOS 7.9, Docker

    Description

      The ORDER BY clause in the GROUP_CONCAT function allows you to specify the order, but if you add DISTINCT, the order will not be as expected.

      MariaDB [relief]> select version();
      +-------------------------------------+
      | version()                           |
      +-------------------------------------+
      | 10.5.8-MariaDB-1:10.5.8+maria~focal |
      +-------------------------------------+
      1 row in set (0.000 sec)
       
      MariaDB [relief]> CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE table1 ( id int auto_increment primary key, kind text, year int, ranking int );
      Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.014 sec)
       
      MariaDB [relief]> INSERT INTO table1 (kind, year, ranking) VALUES ('a', 2019, 1), ('a', 2018, 2), ('a', 2017, 1);
      Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.007 sec)
      Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
       
      MariaDB [relief]> INSERT INTO table1 (kind, year, ranking) VALUES ('b', 2019, 6)
          -> ;
      Query OK, 1 row affected (0.001 sec)
       
      MariaDB [relief]> SELECT * FROM table1;
      +----+------+------+---------+
      | id | kind | year | ranking |
      +----+------+------+---------+
      |  1 | a    | 2019 |       1 |
      |  2 | a    | 2018 |       2 |
      |  3 | a    | 2017 |       1 |
      |  4 | b    | 2019 |       6 |
      +----+------+------+---------+
      4 rows in set (0.000 sec)
      
      

      Here, I concatted the `ranking` in the order of `year`.

      MariaDB [relief]> SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(ranking ORDER BY year) FROM table1 GROUP BY kind;
      +-------------------------------------+
      | GROUP_CONCAT(ranking ORDER BY year) |
      +-------------------------------------+
      | 1,2,1                               |
      | 6                                   |
      +-------------------------------------+
      2 rows in set (0.001 sec)
       
      MariaDB [relief]>
      

      Then I added DISTINCT.
      The expected result is '1,2'.

      MariaDB [relief]> SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ranking ORDER BY year) FROM table1 GROUP BY kind;
      +----------------------------------------------+
      | GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ranking ORDER BY year) |
      +----------------------------------------------+
      | 2,1                                          |
      | 6                                            |
      +----------------------------------------------+
      2 rows in set (0.001 sec)
       
      MariaDB [relief]>
      

      I tried the same thing with MySQL 5.7, and got the same result.

      Is it possible that the order is not kept when DISTINCT is added to the GROUP_CONCAT function?

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            Unassigned Unassigned
            lobin.z0x50 Wataru Maeda
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              Created:
              Updated:

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