How to merge these queries into one

Question

So yeah, I've tried to wrap my head arround this but I cant think of a solution. First of all it works fine nothing broken, yet I'm not satisfied the way I did it and I thought there might be a better way to accomplish this.

Ok what I want is this:

["id"] => string(1) "1"
["name"] => string(4) "name"
["type"] => string(4) "text"
["entity"] => string(4) "user"
["required"] => string(1) "1"
["sorting"] => string(2) "99"
["validator_id"] => string(1) "1"
["validator_name"] => string(12) "StringLength"
["filter_id"] => string(1) "1"
["filter_name"] => string(10) "StringTrim"
["form_field_id"] => string(1) "1"
["form_validator_id"] => string(1) "1"
["validator_options"] => string(20) "a:1:{s:3:"min";i:2;}"

What I do:

$q = 'SELECT
            ff.*, fhff.sorting
        FROM
            form_field ff
        INNER JOIN form_has_form_field fhff ON fhff.form_field_id = ff.id
        WHERE
            ff.id IN (
                SELECT
                    fhff.form_field_id
                FROM
                    form_has_form_field fhff
                WHERE
                    fhff.form_id = "'.$id.'"
            )
        ORDER BY fhff.sorting ';

Then I do a select on the form table to get the name

Now I do some checks if i have results, merge clean it, append the formname, etc...

the result then looks like this:

["id"] => string(1) "2"
["name"] => string(4) "test"
["type"] => string(8) "textarea"
["entity"] => string(4) "user"
["required"] => string(1) "0"
["sorting"] => string(2) "70"

And loop over this query with the results:

  $q = '
    SELECT
    form_validator.id as validator_id,
    form_validator.`name` as validator_name,
    form_filter.id as filter_id,
    form_filter.`name` as filter_name,
    form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id,
    form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id,
    form_field_has_form_validator.`options` as validator_options
    FROM
    form_field
    INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_filter ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_field_id = form_field.id
    INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_validator ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id = form_field.id
    INNER JOIN form_filter ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_filter_id = form_filter.id
    INNER JOIN form_validator ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id = form_validator.id
    HAVING form_field_id = "'.$r['id'].'"
';

where $r['id'] equals the id from the first result array

When I'm done, I merge this arrays and they look like the very first array I showed you.

Now back to the Question:

Can I somehow merge theses 3 queries into 1 and would that even benefit in terms of performance?

Edit:

Heres a screen of how these tables are connected http://s14.directupload.net/images/140321/peailx3y.png http://i60.tinypic.com/nnmr9t.png http://s21.postimg.org/9bzr3f8dj/nnmr9t.png

And a piece of additional information: I only have the form.id in the beginning and try to get all the info from the rest of the tables which have a connection to the form_field_table

PS: OFC I'm using PDO

Answer 1

Okay I'm going to try to answer this as best as I can given the question.

First you probably don't need to loop that query over the results. You need to add those results to a comma separated string or something of that nature and input them into your SQL statement using IN Note:I'm not even going to bother going into exists with this question so don't ask question viewers.

Second you DO NOT want to use a HAVING clause in this situation as it applies the filter after gathering all the results. For performance this sucks on ice and is not something you want to do. So applying these two fixes makes you solution look like this.

SELECT
    form_validator.id as validator_id,
    form_validator.`name` as validator_name,
    form_filter.id as filter_id,
    form_filter.`name` as filter_name,
    form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id,
    form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id,
    form_field_has_form_validator.`options` as validator_options
FROM form_field
INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_filter 
    ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_field_id = form_field.id
INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_validator 
    ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id = form_field.id
INNER JOIN form_filter 
    ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_filter_id = form_filter.id
INNER JOIN form_validator 
    ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id = form_validator.id
WHERE form_field.form_field_id IN (YourCommaSeperatedValueList)

Next lets talk formatting. Since the table names are a bit messy we are going to use aliasing to make it easier to read. This should help with you WHERE clause error you mentioned in the comments as well.

SELECT
    FV.id as validator_id,
    FV.`name` as validator_name,
    FF.id as filter_id,
    FF.`name` as filter_name,
    FFV.form_field_id,
    FFV.form_validator_id,
    FFV.`options` as validator_options
FROM form_field as F
INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_filter FH
    ON FH.form_field_id = F.id
INNER JOIN form_field_has_form_validator  FFV.
    ON FFV..form_field_id = F.id
INNER JOIN form_filter FF
    ON FH.form_filter_id = FF.id
INNER JOIN form_validator AS FV
    ON FFV.form_validator_id = FV.id
WHERE F.form_field_id IN (YourCommaSeperatedValueList)

There that looks much better and now your WHERE clause is easier to get right because you don't have overlapping column names.

Now last but not least find the person who name those tables and punch them directly in the face.

Answer 2

This is what I've done in the end

SELECT
            form_field.*, form_has_form_field.sorting,
            form_validator.id AS validator_id,
            form_validator.`name` AS validator_name,
            form_filter.id AS filter_id,
            form_filter.`name` AS filter_name,
            form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id,
            form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id,
            form_field_has_form_validator.`options` AS validator_options
        FROM
            form_field
        INNER JOIN 
            form_field_has_form_filter 
            ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_field_id = form_field.id
        INNER JOIN 
            form_field_has_form_validator 
            ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_field_id = form_field.id
        INNER JOIN
            form_filter 
            ON form_field_has_form_filter.form_filter_id = form_filter.id
        INNER JOIN 
            form_validator 
            ON form_field_has_form_validator.form_validator_id = form_validator.id
        INNER JOIN 
            form_has_form_field 
            ON form_has_form_field.form_field_id = form_field.id
        WHERE
            form_field.id IN (
                SELECT
                    form_has_form_field.form_field_id
                FROM
                    form_has_form_field
                WHERE
                    form_has_form_field.form_id = "'.$id.'"
            )
        ORDER BY
            form_has_form_field.sorting