How to form a query so that the limit is for a certain number of unique fields?

Question

SQL

There is a request like this:

SELECT 
       contacts.id as id, 
       contacts.name as name, 
       phone.phone as phone, 
       email.email as email 
FROM contacts 
LEFT JOIN phone 
ON 
contacts.phone = phone.phone_id 
LEFT JOIN email 
ON 
contacts.email = email.email_id
LIMIT 6

Which returns:


How to make LIMIT not by the number of records, but by the number of unique fields in the name column?

Answer 1

The first thing that comes to mind is GROUP BY , but with it you will have to somehow aggregate the rest of the fields.
Another option is to make a request for a request with a limit, something like:

SELECT 
       c.id AS id, 
       c.name AS name, 
       phone.phone AS phone, 
       email.email AS email 
FROM (SELECT id, name, phone, email FROM contacts LIMIT 6) AS c 
LEFT JOIN phone 
       ON c.phone = phone.phone_id 
LEFT JOIN email 
       ON c.email = email.email_id