Doing some calculations in mysql, numbers off when using GROUP BY

Im running the following query to get the stats for a user, based on which I pay them.

SELECT hit_paylevel, sum(hit_uniques) as day_unique_hits
       , (sum(hit_uniques)/1000)*hit_paylevel as day_earnings
       , hit_date 
FROM daily_hits 
WHERE hit_user = 'xxx' AND hit_date >= '2011-05-01' AND hit_date < '2011-06-01' 
GROUP BY hit_user

The table in question looks like this:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `daily_hits` (
  `hit_itemid` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `hit_mainid` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `hit_user` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `hit_date` date NOT NULL,
  `hit_hits` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `hit_uniques` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `hit_embed` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `hit_paylevel` int(1) NOT NULL D开发者_开发知识库EFAULT '1',
  PRIMARY KEY (`hit_itemid`,`hit_date`),
  KEY `hit_user` (`hit_user`),
  KEY `hit_mainid` (`hit_mainid`,`hit_date`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

The problem in the calculation has to do with the hit_paylevel which acts as a multiplier. Default is one, the other option is 2 or 3, which essentially doubles or triples the earnings for that day.

If I loop through the days, the daily day_earnings is correct, its just that when I group them, it calculates everything as paylevel 1. This happens if the user was paylevel 1 in the beginning, and was later upgraded to a higher level. if user is pay level 2 from the start, it also calculates everything correctly.

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Shouldn't this be sum(hit_uniques * hit_paylevel) / 1000?

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Like @Denis said:

Change the query to

SELECT hit_paylevel, sum(hit_uniques) as day_unique_hits
       , sum(hit_uniques * hit_paylevel) / 1000 as day_earnings
       , hit_date 
FROM daily_hits 
WHERE hit_user = 'xxx' AND hit_date >= '2011-05-01' AND hit_date < '2011-06-01' 
GROUP BY hit_user;

Why this fixes the problem
Doing the hit_paylevel outside the sum, first sums all hit_uniques and then picks a random hit_paylevel to multiply it by.
Not what you want. If you do both columns inside the sum MySQL will pair up the correct hit_uniques and hit_paylevels.

The dangers of group by
This is an important thing to remember on MySQL.
The group by clause works different from other databases.
On MSSQL *(or Oracle or PostgreSQL) you would have gotten an error

non-aggregate expression must appear in group by clause

Or words to that effect.

In your original query hit_paylevel is not in an aggregate (sum) and it's also not in the group by clause, so MySQL just picks a value at random.