Finding and deleting duplicate rows from a table
This tip will tell you how to find duplicate rows in a table and delete them.
This tip will show you how to find duplicate rows in a table and then delete them. First, create a table called...
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empl with columns desc and emplid. Now find out the duplicate rows in this table, using the following query:
select desc, emplid from empl group by desc, emplid having count(*) > 1;
To delete duplicate rows from this table, use the following query:
delete from empl a where rowid > ( select min(rowid) from empl b where a.desc = b.desc and a.emplid = b.emplid);
Reader Feedback
Michael P. writes: The query in this tip works very well as given. But there are times when you also want a count of the duplicates. The original query can be modified slightly to use a subquery, and thus return the count as well.
select count, desc, emplid from ( select count(*) as count, desc, emplid from empl group by desc, emplid ) where count > 1 order by count, emplid;
This is as fast as the original and in a table with lots of duplicates (perhaps from a legacy application or a design change), the count is also nice to know.
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