group and sum table. Help

[nikko50]

The following sql will not return the sum of quantity for the item column. My table looks like this....

item quantity
printer 2
printer 3
copier 2
copier 3

All I'm trying to do is group the item column and sum the quantities for each individual item. Below is what I came up with and it does group the items but it does not return a value for the total quantities.

$equiplist="SELECT item, sum(quantity) FROM shiplist GROUP BY item";

[bubblenut]

The query is sound. If you are fetching the columns via an associative array that is probably where the difficulties are arising as MySQL will retrurn the column title as SUM(quantity) so re-write your query as

$equiplist="SELECT item, sum(quantity) as quantity FROM shiplist GROUP BY item";

HTH
Bubble

[nikko50]

Thanks so much. You we're exactly right. I used the AS clause and it works.
SHARON