MySQL Query: LIMITing a JOIN
-
03-07-2019 - |
Question
Say I have two tables I want to join. Categories:
id name
----------
1 Cars
2 Games
3 Pencils
And items:
id categoryid itemname
---------------------------
1 1 Ford
2 1 BMW
3 1 VW
4 2 Tetris
5 2 Pong
6 3 Foobar Pencil Factory
I want a query that returns the category and the first (and only the first) itemname:
category.id category.name item.id item.itemname
-------------------------------------------------
1 Cars 1 Ford
2 Games 4 Tetris
3 Pencils 6 Foobar Pencil Factory
And is there a way I could get random results like:
category.id category.name item.id item.itemname
-------------------------------------------------
1 Cars 3 VW
2 Games 5 Pong
3 Pencils 6 Foobar Pencil Factory
Thanks!
Solution
Just done a quick test. This seems to work:
mysql> select * from categories c, items i
-> where i.categoryid = c.id
-> group by c.id;
+------+---------+------+------------+----------------+
| id | name | id | categoryid | name |
+------+---------+------+------------+----------------+
| 1 | Cars | 1 | 1 | Ford |
| 2 | Games | 4 | 2 | Tetris |
| 3 | Pencils | 6 | 3 | Pencil Factory |
+------+---------+------+------------+----------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
I think this would fulfil your first question. Not sure about the second one - I think that needs an inner query with order by random() or something like that!
OTHER TIPS
Mysql lets you to have columns not included in grouping or aggregate, in which case they've got random values:
select category.id, category.name, itemid, itemname
inner join
(select item.categoryid, item.id as itemid, item.name as itemname
from item group by categoryid)
on category.id = categoryid
Or, for minimums,
select category.id, category.name, itemid, itemname
inner join
(select item.categoryid, min(item.id) as itemid, item.name as itemname
from items
group by item.categoryid)
on category.id = categoryid
Mysql does let include non aggregate columns and there is no guarantee of determinism, but in my experience I nearly always get the first values.
So usually (but not guaranteed) this will give you the first
select *
from categories c, items i
where i.categoryid = c.id
group by c.id;
If you want guaranteed you will need to do something like
select categories.id, categories.name, items.id, items.name
from categories inner join
items on items.categoryid = categories.id and
items.id = (select min(items2.id) from items as items2 where items2.categoryid = category.id)
If you want random answers you will have to change the subquery a little bit
select categories.id, categories.name, items.id, items.name
from categories inner join
items on items.categoryid = categories.id and
items.id = (select items2.id from items as items2 where items2.categoryid = category.id order by rand() limit 1)