PHP MySQL Highscore table - php

Question

Im joining 3 tables to present a table with users highest score
My tables
game_log:
---ID---user_ID---score---time---
| 1 52 567 10 |
| 2 53 641 13 |
| 3 52 465 8 |
| 4 53 451 14 |
---------------------------------
users:
---ID---name---countyid---
| 52 Dave 1 |
| 53 John 2 |
------------------------
county:
---countyid---countyname---
| 1 Orange wichit |
| 2 Orange clemts |
--------------------------
SQL:
SELECT * FROM game_log
INNER JOIN users ON game_log.user_ID=users.ID
INNER JOIN county ON users.countyid=county.countyid
ORDER BY game_log.score DESC , game_log.time LIMIT 20";
Above code gives me this result:
Rank---Name--------County------Score---Time
1 John Orange clemts 641 13
2 Dave Orange wichit 567 10
3 John Orange clemts 465 8
4 Dave Orange wichit 451 14
My problem is that I want the highscore table to display the top 20 users with the highest score, not the 20 highest scores.
Like this:
Rank---Name--------County------Score---Time
1 John Orange clemts 641 13
2 Dave Orange wichit 567 10
Need som help with this, not familiar with joining tables ;-)

Answer 1

This approach will show the top 20 users and each user's highest score, and if they have multiple instances of the same score, it'll show the information for the earliest one (lowest time value for that user and score).
SELECT *
FROM game_log gl
INNER JOIN users u
ON gl.user_ID = u.ID
INNER JOIN county c
ON u.countyid = c.countyid
WHERE not exists (select 1
from game_log gl2
where gl2.user_id = gl.user_id
and gl2.score > gl.score)
and not exists (select 1
from game_log gl2
where gl2.user_id = gl.user_id
and gl2.time < gl.time
and gl2.score = gl.score)
ORDER BY gl.score DESC, gl.time LIMIT 20;
Without doing this, if the same user in the top 20 had the same score 2+ times, they would be listed 2+ times, and you would not get back 20 people by using LIMIT 20 because the same person would be taking up N rows out of that 20.
SQL Fiddle here showing data with a tie: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!2/0ac931/5/0

Answer 2

GROUP BY should do the job.
SELECT users.ID, users.name, county.countyname, MAX(game_log.score) AS score, game_log.time
FROM game_log
INNER JOIN users ON game_log.user_ID = users.ID
INNER JOIN county ON users.countyid = county.countyid
GROUP BY game_log.user_ID
ORDER BY game_log.score DESC, game_log.time
LIMIT 20;
Try it out with SQL Fiddle.

Answer 3

I would do this with the not exists approach to get the highest score for each user. The rest of the query is the same:
SELECT *
FROM game_log gl INNER JOIN
users u
ON gl.user_ID = u.ID INNER JOIN
county c
ON u.countyid = c.countyid
WHERE not exists (select 1
from game_log gl2
where gl2.user_id = gl.user_id and gl2.score > gl.score
)
ORDER BY gl.score DESC, gl.time
LIMIT 20;
The where clause is saying "keep this row if no other row for the same user has a higher score".
Another way to do this is with the aggregation approach:
SELECT *
FROM (select user_id, max(score) as maxscore
from game_log gl
group by user_id
) gl INNER JOIN
users u
ON gl.user_ID = u.ID INNER JOIN
county c
ON u.countyid = c.countyid
ORDER BY gl.maxscore DESC
LIMIT 20;
But this method loses the information about time. It is possible to include that, but it makes the query more complicated.