Unexpected results from SQL Query using GROUP_CONCAT - php

Question

I'm having an issue with an sql query and I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. Anyways let me explain:
Initially this was the original query:
SELECT cl.*,
c.id,c.type,
c.firstname,
c.surname,
c.job,
c.company,
c.directorycompany_id,
dc.id, dc.name,
es.id FROM contactlist_contact cl
INNER JOIN contact c ON cl.contact_id = c.id
LEFT JOIN directorycompany dc ON dc.id = c.directorycompany_id
LEFT JOIN expertsection es ON es.id = c.expertsection_id
WHERE cl.contactlist_id = 36311
ORDER BY dc.surname
The statement fetches all of the details from the contactlist table where the id is X. The information it returns is a row for each contact in the contactlist table along with information on the company (directorycompany) they work for and various other details about the contact from the contact table. So the information looks something like this:
contactlist_id contact_id id active id type firstname surname job company directorycompany_id id name id
36311 1939 316955375 1 1939 directory Joe Bloggs Deputy Editor 786 786 Herald People 0
36311 1935 316955374 1 1935 directory Jim Bloggs Advertising Manager 786 786 Herald People 0
36311 28034 316955373 1 28034 directory Jay Bloggs News Reporter 786 786 Herald People 0
I then went and attempted to modify the above SQL as additional functionality was required but I've been seeing unwanted results. Basically I am trying to JOIN 3 other tables
directorycolumn
directorysupplement
directoryprogramme
The idea being that it would return all of the columns, supplements and programmes that the contact in the contactlist has also written. Also to point out, in some cases a contact may have written more than 1 column, supplement or programme and as a result I ideally wanted to display this in the same row as the contact as opposed to duplicating the rows so I used the GROUP_CONCAT() function.
This is the modified SQL
SELECT cl.*,
c.id,
c.type,
c.firstname,
c.surname,
c.job,
c.company,
c.directorycompany_id,
dc.id, dc.name,
es.id,
GROUP_CONCAT(dirc.name) AS gcname,
GROUP_CONCAT(dirp.name) AS gpname,
GROUP_CONCAT(dirs.name) AS gsname
FROM contactlist_contact cl
INNER JOIN contact c ON cl.contact_id = c.id
LEFT JOIN directorycompany dc ON dc.id = c.directorycompany_id
LEFT JOIN expertsection es ON es.id = c.expertsection_id
LEFT JOIN directorycolumn dirc ON dirc.directorycontact_id = c.id
LEFT JOIN directoryprogramme dirp ON dirp.directorycontact_id = c.id
LEFT JOIN directorysupplement dirs ON dirs.directorycontact_id = c.id
WHERE cl.contactlist_id = 36311
ORDER BY dc.surname
This returns:
contactlist_id contact_id id active id type firstname surname job company directorycompany_id id name id gcname gpname gsname
36311 28034 316955373 1 28034 directory Jay Bloggs News Reporter 786 786 Herald People 0 The Arts Scene,Farming \N \N
So my question is, where have the other 2 results gone and why are they not showing? And also why is the information in gcname being displayed for this contact when in fact it is related to the contact with the id 1939

Answer 1

if you remove GROUP_CONCAT it would display correct records, because when you use this function you should have GROUP BY clause. Currently it will consider all records as a single group.
If you look values in gcname is multiple, which is correct.

Answer 2

Group_concat is part of mysql aggregate functions. That means it will group all equal values together into one row, in your case all three columns have the same value, thats why you only get one as result. what result would you expect using group_concat?