Mysql Duplicate Rows ( Duplicate detected using 2 columns )

Question

How to remove duplicated in this setup?

id    A       B 
----------------
1     apple   2  
2     orange  1       
3     apple   2   
4     apple   1 

In here I want to remove (apple,2) which occurs twice. The id numbers are unique. I would use DISTINCT keyword if it were not. Can I some how make a key out of columns A and B and then use the DISTINCT keyword on that to get what I need ? Many thanks for your replies.

Answer 1

delete from myTable 
where id not in
(select min(id)
from myTable
group by A, B)

i.e. the select in brackets returns the first id for each grouping of A and B; deleting all ids that are not in this set will remove all occurences of an A-plus-B combination that are "subsequent" to its first occurrence.

EDIT: this syntax seems to be problematic: see bug report:

http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=5037

A possible workaround is to do this:

delete from myTable 
where id not in
(
      select minid from 
      (select min(id) as minid from myTable group by A, B) as newtable
)