Finding duplicates database entries

[majocmatt]

This might not belong here but most of you all work with mysql too...

I have a voting system where people type their vote in a textbox, not from a radio group. This is because there can be so many answers. I'm currently creating a spellcheck script that will eliminate wrongly typed names, or at least try. My problem is however, tallying up the votes.

DB Schema (id,vote,ip,date) - the vote field will be a name of a person.

Let's say there are three entries of the name Naked Cowboy in the database, and lets say he has the most votes. How would my query find that he is indeed the most voted on. In other words, how does one construct a query to tally up duplicates of the name field?

Thanks.

[AdRock]

SQL DISTINCT might help you

[majocmatt]

but I dont neccessarily know what I will be searching for.

distinct would eliminate duplicates, no?

[MarioRossi]

Why not put a users table in you db with 3 columns (id, Name, Votes)?

You could then use a dropdown box to list the names and increment the votes column on each vote.

[majocmatt]

Thats the thing, its a public voting system, and I dont want a constrained list of vote possibilities, users will be able to choose any name they like.

[MarioRossi]

OK

try this;

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT vote) AS votecount, vote 
FROM UsersTable GROUP BY vote

[Barand]

COUNT(DISTINCT vote) ... GROUP BY vote

should always give a count of 1 !

Try

SELECT COUNT(*) AS votecount, vote
FROM UsersTable GROUP BY vote
HAVING votecount > 1

[majocmatt]

cool thanks, i got it

thank you all for the valuable input, its much appreciated.