selecting, counting, and ordering similar data that exists

[scarhand]

lets say i have a table like this:

 

name | age | sex

mike | 22 | male

mitch | 21 | male

joan | 17 | female

john | 33 | male

 

and i want to select, count, and order all these results by sex (descending) without using any php variables to do so

 

and after they are selected, i am going to be putting them in an html table that will look like this:

 

sex | count

male | 3

female | 1

 

i have no idea where to get started...i can do the php on my own but i dont have any clue what to use for the select statement...im sure it will have to include SELECT, COUNT, WHERE, and GROUP BY but honestly im not sure.

 

any help would greatly be appreciated.

[teng84]

 

select sex, count(sex) as t_count from tablename group by sex order by sex desc