select count(distinct(category)) as number_of_posts from posts;
should do it.
Steve
"Russ Michell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:SIMEON.10108211219.F@k1c. anglia.ac.uk...
> Hi there people:
>
> I have a MySQL table consisting of category names among other things.
> I would like to be able to construct a query that tells me the number of
times a unique category
> name occurs in the table:
>
> file://Table 'posts' from command-line
> mysql> explain posts;
> +----------+-------------+------+-----+------------+----------------+
> | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
> +----------+-------------+------+-----+------------+----------------+
> | id | tinyint(3) | | PRI | 0 | auto_increment |
> | category | varchar(25) | | | | |
> | user | varchar(12) | | | | |
> | dateFrom | date | | | 0000-00-00 | |
> | dateTo | date | | | 0000-00-00 | |
> | title | varchar(25) | | | | |
> | body | text | | | NULL | |
> +----------+-------------+------+-----+------------+----------------+
> 7 rows in set (0.00 sec)
>
> file://Table 'posts' in phpMyAdmin tab
> id category user dateFrom dateTo title body
> 3 some stuff maurice 2001-09-23 2001-11-05 Maurcie's post this
is Maurice's test
> 4 russ category russmichell 2001-08-17 2001-08-27 Russ is theone this
is another test
> 9 russ category russmichell 2001-08-16 2001-08-19 Begon by Monday! This
entry should dissapear
> 10 russ category russmichell 2001-08-16 2001-09-04 testing This
is another test!
>
> For example I would like to know how many posts there are in the category
'russ category' (Should
> tell me there are 3 and only 1 for 'some stuff' ...
>
> Can anyone help me toward a nice SQL query that would to this for me!?
> Cheers all.
>
> Russ
>
> #-------------------------------------------------------#
>
> "Believe nothing - consider everything"
>
> Russ Michell
> Anglia Polytechnic University Webteam
>
> e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> w: www.apu.ac.uk/webteam
> t: +44 (0)1223 363271 x 2331
>
> www.theruss.com
>
> #-------------------------------------------------------#
>
--
PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
