Is there any difference between GROUP BY and DISTINCT

Question

I learned something simple about SQL the other day:

SELECT c FROM myTbl GROUP BY C 

Has the same result as:

SELECT DISTINCT C FROM myTbl 

What I am curious of, is there anything different in the way an SQL engine processes the command, or are they truly the same thing?

I personally prefer the distinct syntax, but I am sure it's more out of habit than anything else.

EDIT: This is not a question about aggregates. The use of GROUP BY with aggregate functions is understood.

Answer 1

MusiGenesis' response is functionally the correct one with regard to your question as stated; the SQL Server is smart enough to realize that if you are using "Group By" and not using any aggregate functions, then what you actually mean is "Distinct" - and therefore it generates an execution plan as if you'd simply used "Distinct."

However, I think it's important to note Hank's response as well - cavalier treatment of "Group By" and "Distinct" could lead to some pernicious gotchas down the line if you're not careful. It's not entirely correct to say that this is "not a question about aggregates" because you're asking about the functional difference between two SQL query keywords, one of which is meant to be used with aggregates and one of which is not.

A hammer can work to drive in a screw sometimes, but if you've got a screwdriver handy, why bother?

(for the purposes of this analogy, Hammer : Screwdriver :: GroupBy : Distinct and screw => get list of unique values in a table column)

Answer 2

GROUP BY lets you use aggregate functions, like AVG, MAX, MIN, SUM, and COUNT. On the other hand DISTINCT just removes duplicates.

For example, if you have a bunch of purchase records, and you want to know how much was spent by each department, you might do something like:

SELECT department, SUM(amount) FROM purchases GROUP BY department 

This will give you one row per department, containing the department name and the sum of all of the amount values in all rows for that department.