Well, there you have it! How do you get rid of duplicate content showing up in your nicely crafted, database-driven tables? Use the DISTINCT clarifier in your SELECT statement.
There’s no need to say more about this easy way to delete doubled data, but an example is always nice for clarity. Let’s say you’re keeping track of all the animals with whom you’ve shared your abode. The database is a simple one that collects information about your pets, their names, the type of animals, birthdates, deaths, and the history you’ve shared.
Here’s an example table produced with a simple SELECT statement. A row of data is repeated in the table because of duplicate values in the database.
Query: SELECT `name`, `species`, `variety`, `history` FROM `pets` WHERE `history` = ‘found stray’
Here’s a table produced with a SELECT DISTINCT statement. Each row is distinct and the repeated row has quietly disappeared.
Query: SELECT DISTINCT `name`, `species`, `variety`, `history` FROM `pets` WHERE `history` = ‘found stray’
How did the data for ‘Highway’ get in there twice? Someone probably re-entered his information that was previously entered at an earlier date. But, now that we know how to use the DISTINCT clarifier in a MySQL query, the duplicated data is not a problem for us in presenting the data onscreen.