How to combine near same item by SQL?

Question

I have some data in database:

id user 
1 zhangsan 
2 zhangsan 
3 zhangsan 
4 lisi 
5 lisi 
6 lisi 
7 zhangsan 
8 zhangsan 

I want keep order, a

Answer 1

If you try:

SET @name:='',@num:=0;

SELECT id,
       @num:= if(@name = user, @num, @num + 1) as number,
       @name := user as user
FROM foo
ORDER BY id ASC;

This gives:

+------+--------+------+
| id   | number | user |
+------+--------+------+
|    1 |      1 | a    |
|    2 |      1 | a    |
|    3 |      1 | a    |
|    4 |      2 | b    |
|    5 |      2 | b    |
|    6 |      2 | b    |
|    7 |      3 | a    |
|    8 |      3 | a    |
+------+--------+------+

So then you can try:

SET @name:='',@num:=0;

SELECT COUNT(*) as count, user
FROM (
SELECT @num:= if(@name = user, @num, @num + 1) as number,
       @name := user as user
FROM foo
ORDER BY id ASC
) x
GROUP BY number;

Which gives

+-------+------+
| count | user |
+-------+------+
|     3 | a    |
|     3 | b    |
|     2 | a    |
+-------+------+

(I called my table foo and also just used names a and b because I was too lazy to write zhangsan and lisi over and over).