MySQL SELECT most frequent by group

Question

How do I get the most frequently occurring category for each tag in MySQL? Ideally, I would want to simulate an aggregate function that would calculate the mode of a column.

Answer 1

SELECT  tag, category
FROM    (
        SELECT  @tag <> tag AS _new,
                @tag := tag AS tag,
                category, COUNT(*) AS cnt
        FROM    (
                SELECT  @tag := ''
                ) vars,
                stuff
        GROUP BY
                tag, category
        ORDER BY
                tag, cnt DESC
        ) q
WHERE   _new

On your data, this returns the following:

'automotive',  8
'ba',          8
'bamboo',      8
'bananatree',  8
'bath',        9

Here's the test script:

CREATE TABLE stuff (tag VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL, category INT NOT NULL);

INSERT
INTO    stuff
VALUES
('automotive',8),
('ba',8),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',10),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',9),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',10),
('bamboo',8),
('bamboo',9),
('bamboo',8),
('bananatree',8),
('bananatree',8),
('bananatree',8),
('bananatree',8),
('bath',9);