GROUP_CONCAT() row count when grouping by a text field

Question

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `table`;
CREATE TABLE `table` (
  `id` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `text` text COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=3 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;

INSERT INTO `table` VALUES ('1', 'Unpacked reserved sir offering bed judgment may and quitting speaking. Is do be improved raptures offering required in replying raillery. Stairs ladies friend by in mutual an no. Mr hence chief he cause. Whole no doors on hoped. Mile tell if help they ye full name. \r\n\r\nLadyship it daughter securing procured or am moreover mr. Put sir she exercise vicinity cheerful wondered. Continual say suspicion provision you neglected sir curiosity unwilling. Simplicity end themselves increasing led day sympathize yet. General windows effects not are drawing man garrets. Common indeed garden you his ladies out yet. Preference imprudence contrasted to remarkably in on. Taken now you him trees tears any. Her object giving end sister except oppose. \r\n\r\nWas justice improve age article between. No projection as up preference reasonably delightful celebrated. Preserved and abilities assurance tolerably breakfast use saw. And painted letters forming far village elderly compact. Her rest west each spot his and you knew. Estate gay wooded depart six far her. Of we be have it lose gate bred. Do separate removing or expenses in. Had covered but evident chapter matters anxious.');
INSERT INTO `table` VALUES ('2', 'Unpacked reserved sir offering bed judgment may and quitting speaking. Is do be improved raptures offering required in replying raillery. Stairs ladies friend by in mutual an no. Mr hence chief he cause. Whole no doors on hoped. Mile tell if help they ye full name. \r\n\r\nLadyship it daughter securing procured or am moreover mr. Put sir she exercise vicinity cheerful wondered. Continual say suspicion provision you neglected sir curiosity unwilling. Simplicity end themselves increasing led day sympathize yet. General windows effects not are drawing man garrets. Common indeed garden you his ladies out yet. Preference imprudence contrasted to remarkably in on. Taken now you him trees tears any. Her object giving end sister except oppose. \r\n\r\nWas justice improve age article between. No projection as up preference reasonably delightful celebrated. Preserved and abilities assurance tolerably breakfast use saw. And painted letters forming far village elderly compact. Her rest west each spot his and you knew. Estate gay wooded depart six far her. Of we be have it lose gate bred. Do separate removing or expenses in. Had covered but evident chapter matters anxious');

When running a GROUP BY query without using GROUP_CONCAT() the result set is as expected (showing two rows, one for each variation of text):

SELECT
    `text`
FROM
    `table`
GROUP BY
    `text`;

+-----------------------------------+
| text                              |
+-----------------------------------+
| Unpacked reserved sir offering... |
| Unpacked reserved sir offering... |
+-----------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.02 sec)

However, when running the same query with a GROUP_CONCAT() the result set is not as expected (showing one row with a concatenated string of the two id fields):

SELECT
    GROUP_CONCAT(`id` SEPARATOR ', ') AS ids
FROM
    `table`
GROUP BY
    `text`;

+------+
| ids  |
+------+
| 1, 2 |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

My question:

Why would using GROUP_CONCAT() affect the number of rows returned?

My initial assumption was that GROUP_CONCAT_MAX_LEN has something to do with it (mine is set to 1024) but surely that only affects GROUP_CONCAT(), not GROUP BY (also, as you may notice, I'm using GROUP_CONCAT() on the id field, not the text field, and the result of that doesn't even come close to exceeding GROUP_CONCAT_MAX_LEN).

Answer 1

You have to change the max_sort_length to higher number session wise or globally as per your need. By default its value is 1024 bytes and your string contains 1170 bytes data. By increasing the size it will give two rows for GROUP_CONCAT.

Check this link max_sort_length

SELECT `text` FROM `table` GROUP BY `text`;

SET SESSION max_sort_length = 2000;
SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(`id` SEPARATOR ', ') AS ids FROM `table` GROUP BY `text`;

Check the SQL FIDDLE DEMO

EDIT: BLOB and TEXT values can't reliably be used in GROUP BY, ORDER BY or DISTINCT. Only the first max_sort_length bytes are used when comparing BLOB values in these cases. The default value of max_sort_length is 1024 and can be changed at server start-up time or at run time.