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Oracle/PLSQL: Retrieve the value that occurs most in a column


Question:  When I do a select on a table, I want to know which value occurs the most in a certain column?


Answer:  To retrieve the value that occurs the most in a certain column, you could try executing the following select statement:

select cnt1.column_name

from (select count(*) as total, column_name
from table_name
group by column_name) cnt1,
(select max(total) as maxtotal
from (select count(*) as total, column_name from table_name group by column_name)) cnt2
where cnt1.total = cnt2.maxtotal;

You will need to replace table_name with the name of your table and column_name with the name of your column.