Finding duplicate values in a SQL table

SELECT
    name, email, COUNT(*)
FROM
    users
GROUP BY
    name, email
HAVING 
    COUNT(*) > 1

Simply group on both of the columns.

Note: the older ANSI standard is to have all non-aggregated columns in the GROUP BY but this has changed with the idea of “functional dependency”:

In relational database theory, a functional dependency is a constraint between two sets of attributes in a relation from a database. In other words, functional dependency is a constraint that describes the relationship between attributes in a relation.

Support is not consistent:

  • Recent PostgreSQL supports it.
  • SQL Server (as at SQL Server 2017) still requires all non-aggregated columns in the GROUP BY.
  • MySQL is unpredictable and you need sql_mode=only_full_group_by:
    • GROUP BY lname ORDER BY showing wrong results;
    • Which is the least expensive aggregate function in the absence of ANY() (see comments in accepted answer).
  • Oracle isn’t mainstream enough (warning: humour, I don’t know about Oracle).

Leave a Comment