sql server - How to quickly survey a table column (count of distinct values) -

sql server - How to quickly survey a table column (count of distinct values) -

a powerfulness user uses sql , other languages (e.g., r). in exploring table (e.g., disease data), there may column severity values mild, moderate, severe.

in many languages (e.g., r) user can write

table(diseasedata$severity)

and see quick table how many rows (count of rows) there each severity.

mild 20321 moderate 3512 severe 35135

a user no rights write own functions , plain tsql rights, there smart tsql command similar table(column) produce nice overview of column?

i looking more advanced , shorter 'select severity, count(*) tbl grouping severity' !

you can utilize code snippet dynamic sql need alter assignment of couple of variables query different tables , different fields.

declare @tablename sysname = 'diseasedata' declare @fieldname sysname = 'severity' declare @sql nvarchar(max) set @sql = 'select '+quotename(@fieldname)+', count(*) c '+quotename(@tablename)+' grouping '+quotename(@fieldname) exec (@sql)

sql-server r