SELECT rows as columns in MySQL?

Question

Consider the following table "views"

user_id  _date       cnt
------------------------
1        2011-02-10  123
1        2011-02-11   99
1        2011-02-12  100
1        2011-02 13   12
2        2011-02-10   32
2        2011-02-11  433
2        2011-02-12  222
2        2011-02 13  334
3        2011-02-10  766
3        2011-02-11  654
3        2011-02-12   43
3        2011-02 13   27
...
100      2011-02-13  235

As you can see, the table holds pageviews (cnt) per day (_date) per user (user_id). I'm looking for a SELECT query that will output the user_ids as columns so the table-data will be in matrix form, as follows:

_date         1    2    3 ... 100
---------------------------------
2011-02-10  123   32  766
2011-02-11   99  433  654
2011-02-12  100  222   43
2011-02-13   12  334   27     235

Is this possible to do with a SELECT statement?

Answer 1

If you're dealing with a finite set of user IDs, you could do something like this:

SELECT _date,
    SUM(CASE WHEN _user_id = 1 THEN cnt ELSE 0 END) AS user1,
    SUM(CASE WHEN _user_id = 2 THEN cnt ELSE 0 END) AS user2,
    SUM(CASE WHEN _user_id = 3 THEN cnt ELSE 0 END) AS user3,
    ...
FROM views
GROUP BY _date

It's more of a hack than a good query, though.

Answer 2

It looks like you have an long list of values that you want to transform. If that is the case then you can use prepared statements. Your code will look like this (see SQL Fiddle with Demo):

CREATE TABLE Table1
    (`user_id` int, `_date` datetime, `cnt` int)
;

INSERT INTO Table1
    (`user_id`, `_date`, `cnt`)
VALUES
    (1, '2011-02-09 17:00:00', 123),
    (1, '2011-02-10 17:00:00', 99),
    (1, '2011-02-11 17:00:00', 100),
    (1, '2011-02-13 00:00:00', 12),
    (2, '2011-02-09 17:00:00', 32),
    (2, '2011-02-10 17:00:00', 433),
    (2, '2011-02-11 17:00:00', 222),
    (2, '2011-02-13 00:00:00', 334),
    (3, '2011-02-09 17:00:00', 766),
    (3, '2011-02-10 17:00:00', 654),
    (3, '2011-02-11 17:00:00', 43),
    (3, '2011-02-13 00:00:00', 27),
    (100, '2011-02-12 17:00:00', 235)
;

SET @sql = NULL;
SELECT
  GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT
    CONCAT(
      'sum(case when user_id = ''',
      user_id,
      '''  then cnt else 0 end) AS ''',
      user_id, ''''
    )
  ) INTO @sql
FROM Table1;

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT _Date, ', @sql, ' 
                  FROM table1 
                  GROUP BY _Date');

PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;