Using LIMIT with GROUP_CONCAT in MariaDB 10.3.3+

Prior to version 10.3.3 of MariaDB it was not possible to use LIMIT in a GROUP_CONCAT query. So in cases you wanted to select the first n elements of a GROUP_CONCAT query you had to make use of SUBSTRING_INDEX.``` CREATE TABLE t1 (id BIGINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, email VARCHAR(255), PRIMARY KEY(id)); INSERT INTO t1 (email) VALUES (‘email’), (‘test2@email.com’), (‘test1@email.com’);

To select the first element you would execute the following query: SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(GROUP_CONCAT(email SEPARATOR ‘::'), ‘::’, n) FROM t1;

where n is the number of elements required This has always felt hacky to me. Now you can make the query simple and straightforward by using: SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(email SEPARATOR ‘::’ LIMIT n) FROM t1;