title: sql group by versus distinct
body: <p>Why would someone use a group by versus distinct when there are no aggregations done in the query?</p>
  
  <p>Also, does someone know the group by versus distinct performance considerations in MySQL and SQL Server.  I'm guessing that SQL Server has a better optimizer and they might be close to equivalent there, but in MySQL, I expect a significant performance advantage to distinct.</p>
  
  <p>I'm interested in dba answers.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:</p>
  
  <p>Bill's post is interesting, but not applicable.  Let me be more specific...</p>
  
  <pre><code>select a, b, c 
  from table x
  group by a, b,c
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>versus</p>
  
  <pre><code>select distinct a,b,c
  from table x
  </code></pre>