SQL Select All Where the Concat is Distinct

Question

I am looking to create a select statement where I select all columns and rows when the concatenation of two of the rows is distinct. I have my SQL statement below. However, I am not sure how to properly create this statement, how would this statement be written?

$query = "SELECT * FROM APPROVED 
  WHERE DISTINCT CONCAT(P_NUMBER,'-',A_NUMBER) AS CNUMBER 
  AND (STATUS = 'ACTIVE' OR STATUS = 'CLOSED' OR STATUS = 'CLOSING' OR STATUS = 'PENDING')"; 

Answer 1

DISTINCT is used on the column selection. There are a couple ways to do this:

SELECT DISTINCT CONCAT(P_NUMBER,'-',A_NUMBER) AS CNUMBER FROM APPROVED WHERE 
AND (STATUS = 'ACTIVE' OR STATUS = 'CLOSED' OR STATUS = 'CLOSING' OR STATUS =     'PENDING')

that should do almost the same thing as

SELECT * FROM APPROVED WHERE 
AND (STATUS = 'ACTIVE' OR STATUS = 'CLOSED' OR STATUS = 'CLOSING' OR STATUS =     'PENDING')
GROUP BY CONCAT(P_NUMBER,'-',A_NUMBER)

the 2nd doesn't include the concatenation in the results, and the first one ONLY includes the concatenation. You'll need to specify all the columns to return.