SQL - count occurrences in a column by DAY - sql

Question

I have a table as follows:
and I want to count the occurrences of say "ab" and "cd" in the column PageURL and GROUP by DAY (i.e. no matter how many occurrences for the day, it's count as 1).
ID User Activity PageURL ActDateTime
1 Me act1 abcd 2013-01-17 19:09:01.040
2 Me act2 cdab 2013-01-17 19:09:06.613
3 You act2 xyza 2013-01-30 16:10:50.177
4 Me act3 xyab 2013-01-30 10:35:09.037
I want to have 2 columns...1 for count of "ab" and 1 for count of "cd".
In the above example, there are 3 counts for "ab" but I will only count as 2 because the first 2 occurred on the SAME day (so count as 1).
Again, there are 2 counts for "cd" in PageURL column but I want to only count as 1 because occurred on same day too.
Furthermore, I want to group by Month-Year i.e. Jan-12, Feb-12, March-12, April-12 ...etc.
Would really appreciate some assistance and advice. Thank you!
This is what I've done so far (but it does NOT take into the account of grouping by DAY)
SELECT USER,
department,
activity,
[MonthYear] = DATENAME(mm, ActDateTime)+ ' - ' +
DATENAME(yy, actdatetime),
[ab] = sum(case when pageURL like '%ab%' THEN 1 else 0 END),
[cd]= sum(CASE WHEN pageURL LIKE '%cd%'THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)
FROM activityLog
GROUP BY USER,
department,
activity,
DATENAME(mm, ActDateTime)+ ' - ' +
DATENAME(yy, ActDateTime)
ORDER BY USER,
department,
activity,
DATENAME(mm, ActDateTime)+ ' - ' + DATENAME(yy, ActDateTime)

Answer 1

This should work to create your counts I think:
SELECT
cast(ActDateTime as Date) as DateOnly,
SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl Like '%ab%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as ABCount,
SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl Like '%cd%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as CDCount
FROM Table1
GROUP BY cast(ActDateTime as Date)
SQL Fiddle

Answer 2

First query to get counts by day:
SELECT cast(ActDateTime AS Date) AS DateOnly,
CASE
WHEN SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl LIKE '%ab%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) >=1 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS ABCount,
CASE
WHEN SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl LIKE '%cd%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) >=1 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS CDCount
FROM activityLog
GROUP BY cast(ActDateTime AS Date)
Second Query to get your desired output:
SQLFIDDLEExample
SELECT DATENAME(month, a.ActDateTime)+ ' - ' + DATENAME(yy, a.ActDateTime)
,SUM(a.ABCount) as ABCount
,SUM(a.CDCount) as CDCount
FROM (SELECT cast(ActDateTime AS Date) AS ActDateTime,
CASE
WHEN SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl LIKE '%ab%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) >=1 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS ABCount,
CASE
WHEN SUM(CASE WHEN PageUrl LIKE '%cd%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) >=1 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS CDCount
FROM activityLog
GROUP BY cast(ActDateTime AS Date))a
GROUP BY DATENAME(month, a.ActDateTime)+ ' - ' + DATENAME(yy, a.actdatetime)
ORDER BY DATENAME(month, a.ActDateTime)+ ' - ' + DATENAME(yy, a.actdatetime)
Result:
| COLUMN_0 | ABCOUNT | CDCOUNT |
--------------------------------------
| January - 2013 | 2 | 1 |

Answer 3

SELECT Thing
,COUNT(*) NumDays
FROM (SELECT LEFT(PageURL, 2) AS Thing
,DateTime
FROM table
ALL
SELECT RIGHT(PageURL, 2)
,DateTime
FROM table) UniqueDays
This will not work as is because of the key words you have used in your question.
In general it is easier to use the actual column/table names so the answer can reflect these - it avoids confusion.