CODEWITHSUNDEEP
mysql
merkin51
merkin51

Reputation: 21

Find most common words in large MySQL database

I have an old MySQL database which contains over 4,000,000 rows in a single column. Each row contains a business name, many of which, of course, contain more than one word.

I would like to find out the top 1000 most common words in this entire database. Is this possible using a MySQL query?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3647

Answers (2)

user5340092
user5340092

Reputation:

Variation of Strawberry's answer, working and in use on a company website admin panel.

<?php
global $con;
$i = 1;

echo "Most Popular Searches";
$select = "select *, COUNT(*) total from mytable group by mytablecolumn having count(*) > 3 order by total desc";

$connect = mysqli_query($con, $select);
while($row=mysqli_fetch_array($connect)) {
$words = $row['mytablecolumn'];
echo "$i: $words<br/>";
$i++;
}
?>

Upvotes: 0

Strawberry
Strawberry

Reputation: 33935

Consider the following example...

CREATE TABLE soliloquy
(line_number INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
,line VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO soliloquy (line) VALUES
("To be, or not to be, that is the question:"),
("Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer"),
("The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"),
("Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,"),
("And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep"),
("No more; and by a sleep, to say we end"),
("the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks"),
("that Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation"),
("devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,"),
("To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,"),
("for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,"),
("when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,"),
("must give us pause. There's the respect"),
("that makes Calamity of so long life:"),
("For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,"),
("the Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,"),
("the pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,"),
("the insolence of Office, and the spurns"),
("that patient merit of the unworthy takes,"),
("when he himself might his Quietus make"),
("with a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear,"),
("to grunt and sweat under a weary life,"),
("but that the dread of something after death,"),
("the undiscovered country, from whose bourn"),
("no traveller returns, puzzles the will,"),
("and makes us rather bear those ills we have,"),
("than fly to others that we know not of."),
("Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,"),
("and thus the native hue of Resolution"),
("Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,"),
("And enterprises of great pitch and moment,"),
("with this regard their Currents turn awry,"),
("And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,"),
("The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons"),
("Be all my sins remember'd");

The following is a count of how many lines each word appears within - so slightly different from how often each words appears...

Oh, and ints is just a table of integers[i] (0-9)...

SELECT word
     , COUNT(*) total
  FROM 
     ( SELECT DISTINCT line_number
                     , SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(line,' ',i+1),' ',-1) word
                  FROM soliloquy
                     , ints 
     ) x
 GROUP
    BY word
HAVING COUNT(*) > 3 
 ORDER
    BY total DESC
     , word;

+------+-------+
| word | total |
+------+-------+
| the  |    18 |
| of   |    14 |
| and  |    11 |
| To   |     9 |
| that |     7 |
| a    |     5 |
| we   |     4 |
+------+-------+

oh, and there's probably some slight errors with regards to punctuation - but you should get the idea.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions