Question: Is it possible to create a mysql select (directly or using a stored procedure) that will return blanks for repeating columns. For example, a select that would normally return these 7 records with 2 columns:

```
Bob   123
Bob   557
Bob   888
Joe   887
Joe   223
Tom   899
Tom   999

```

I would prefer to see this directly from the sql select:

```
Bob   123
      557
      888
Joe   887
      223
Tom   899
      999

```

I realize I can just post process the records in my program, but I'd like to replace the duplicates with blanks within the sql call.

Answer: 
Yes, it's possible, but it would be **very expensive** (subqueries!) and not at all efficient. Whatever language you use or however you transfer this data directly, it's not worth it to have SQL spare these few bytes.
It seems like it would be a huge waste of resources to not do it through your application, but one way that you could do this is to use [PL/SQL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/SQL) in a stored procedure or something similar to populate a some temporary table. With this you could declare a variable for if the name equals the last name that was iterated over. So if the name is a new name add it to the temporary table otherwise do not. 

Again though this is a huge waste of resources