mysql multiple COUNT() from multiple tables with LEFT JOIN - php

Question

I want to show the conclusion of all users.
I have 3 tables.
table post
post_id(index) user_id
1 1
2 3
3 3
4 4
table photo
photo_id(index) user_id
1 2
2 4
3 1
4 1
table video
photo_id(index) user_id
1 4
2 4
3 3
4 3
and in table user
user_id(index) user_name
1 mark
2 tommy
3 john
4 james
in fact, it has more than 4 rows for every tables.
I want the result like this.
id name post photo videos
1 mark 1 2 0
2 tommy 0 1 0
3 john 2 0 2
4 james 1 1 2
5 .. .. .. ..
Code below is SQL that can work correctly but very slow, I will be true appreciated if you help me how it using LEFT JOIN for it. Thanks.
SQL
"select user.*,
(select count(*) from post where post.userid = user.userid) postCount,
(select count(*) from photo where photo.userid = user.userid) photoCount,
(select count(*) from video where video .userid = user.userid) videoCount
from user order by user.id"
(or ORDER BY postCount, photoCount or videoCount ASC or DESC as i want )
I done researched before but no any helped me.

Answer 1

SELECT u.user_id,
u.user_name,
COUNT(DISTINCT p.post_id) AS `postCount`,
COUNT(DISTINCT ph.photo_id) AS `photoCount`,
COUNT(DISTINCT v.video_id) AS `videoCount`
FROM user u
LEFT JOIN post p
ON p.user_id = u.user_id
LEFT JOIN photo ph
ON ph.user_id = u.user_id
LEFT JOIN video v
ON v.user_id = u.user_id
GROUP BY u.user_id
ORDER BY postCount;
Live DEMO

Answer 2

Your method of doing this is quite reasonable. Here is your query:
select user.*,
(select count(*) from post where post.userid = user.userid) as postCount,
(select count(*) from photo where photo.userid = user.userid) as photoCount,
(select count(*) from video where video.userid = user.userid) as videoCount
from user
order by user.id;
For this query, you want the following indexes:
post(userid)
photo(userid)
video(userid)
user(id)
You probably already have the last one, because user.id is probably the primary key of the table.
Note that a left join approach is a bad idea in this case. The three tables -- posts, photos, and videos -- are independent of each other. If a user has five of each, then joining them together would produce 125 intermediate rows. If a user has fifty of each, it would be 125,000 -- a lot of extra processing.

Answer 3

Your answer is probably slow as it is using a correlated sub-query i.e. the sub query is running once for each user_id (unless the optimizer is doing something smart - which shouldn't be counted on).
You could use a left outer join and count or use something temporary like:
SELECT u.user_id,
u.user_name,
ph.user_count AS 'photoCount',
p.user_count AS 'postCount',
v.user_count AS 'videoCount'
FROM user u
INNER JOIN ( SELECT user_id,
COUNT(*) AS user_count
FROM photo
GROUP BY user_id
) ph
ON ph.user_id=u.user_id
INNER JOIN ( SELECT user_id,
COUNT(*) AS user_count
FROM post
GROUP BY user_id
) p
ON p.user_id=u.user_id
INNER JOIN ( SELECT user_id,
COUNT(*) AS user_count
FROM video
GROUP BY user_id
) v
ON v.user_id=u.user_id
There are pros and cons for both (depending on indexes). Always have a look at the query plan (using EXPLAIN for MySQL).