Build Pivot Tables in MySQL Using User Variables

One of the most prominent tasks when dealing with databases is to properly filter and extract meaningful data from the underlying database. Due to that, there can be requirements to pivot the data from rows to columns leading to the creation of pivot tables to visualize data better.

Some databases like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle come with inbuilt functionality to create a pivot table using the inbuilt pivot() function. However, this function is not available in some databases such as MySQL and MariaDB. In this post, we will discuss how to create pivot tables in MySQL without depending on any special functions.