COUNT() Likes in query returns unexpected results - php

I am creating some sort of a social media like facebook and I'm trying to get the number of likes a post has using the following query.
SELECT posts.object_ID, posts.user_ID, posts.datetime, posts.text,
COUNT(likes.object_ID) AS likes,
SUM(IF(likes.user_ID=?, 1, 0)) AS allowLike, users.first_name,
users.last_name, userinfo.image_ID
FROM posts
LEFT JOIN users ON users.ID=posts.user_ID
LEFT JOIN friends ON (friends.user_ID_1=? OR friends.user_ID_2=?)
AND friends.approved=1
LEFT JOIN userinfo ON users.ID=userinfo.user_ID
LEFT JOIN likes ON likes.object_ID=posts.object_ID
WHERE ". $str ."
GROUP BY posts.object_ID
ORDER BY posts.datetime DESC
LIMIT 0,30
The value of $str is just a mechanism to filter out friends and stuff, e.g.:
$str = "(posts.user_ID=friends.user_ID_1 OR posts.user_ID=friends.user_ID_2) OR posts.user_ID=? ";
What happens now is that COUNT(likes.object_ID) returns 4 and SUM(IF(likes.user_ID=?, 1, 0)) returns 4 as well.
This, surprisingly enough, is the actual amount of likes times the number of friends I have(4), I assume, since a post with 2 likes shows up as 8 likes. Yesterday I had 3 friends and it showed up as 3. And it's only happening when the post is my own.
I use a very similar query for fetching the comments, yet nothing strange is happening there.
Any ideas?
EDIT: It is not just limited to my own posts. I just found a case where it is in someone elses post. Still, it is NOT happening to every post... which is weird. Also, it is not bound to my own likes...
EDIT2: Upon 'reliking' the post I was speaking about in EDIT1, it showed up as one, and after a couple of refreshes it still showed up as 1 like. Weird..

Your problem may be related to your WHERE clause. A parameter is not parsed; your WHERE is simply a long varchar, your RDMS is interpreting this as TRUE.

Well, I decided to give up on this, and just go for a solution similar to the one described by myself and #Duniyadnd in the comments on my question.
I have a table objects. It only contained an ID. I added a field 'likes'. And created two triggers: One for the newLike, and one for a deletedLike which would update the likes column at the given object_ID.
Now my query is as such:
SELECT
posts.object_ID, posts.user_ID, posts.datetime, posts.text, objects.likes,
SUM(IF(likes.user_ID=?, 1, 0)) AS allowLike, users.first_name, users.last_name,
userinfo.image_ID
FROM posts
LEFT JOIN users ON users.ID=posts.user_ID
LEFT JOIN friends ON (friends.user_ID_1=? OR friends.user_ID_2=?) AND friends.approved=1
LEFT JOIN userinfo ON users.ID=userinfo.user_ID
LEFT JOIN objects ON objects.ID=posts.object_ID
LEFT JOIN likes ON likes.object_ID=posts.object_ID
WHERE ". $str ."
GROUP BY posts.object_ID ORDER BY posts.datetime DESC LIMIT 0,30
So I cleared my likes table to start over, yet, allowLike (SUM(IF(likes.user_ID=?, 1, 0))) still returns 4. There is only 1 entry in the likes table, I'm still curious why this is hapenning? Again, I have 4 friends.
Or would I better place this in a new question.

The joins are causing multiple intermediate rows to be created from the cross joins of the rows in one table with those of another table. Therefore your 4 friends are causing the 1 like to be turned into 4 intermediate rows, and then it is summed up to get a result of 4.
Instead of all the joins, try using a select within the first select, like this query on posts/comments/likes:
select postid, postmessage,
(select count(commentid) from comment where post.postid = comment.postid) as numcomments,
(select sum(value) from like where post.postid = like.postid) as popularity
from post
group by postid
(I have like.value as being 1 or -1 as up votes and down votes)
Hope that helps :)

Related

JOIN - Select columns/details with different criteria than COUNT

I have a chat system. There are 3 tables:
data_chats - holds the IDs of the chats themselves. This is where you mark a chat as deleted.
data_chat_parties - holds the member or team ID that is included in chat along with chat permissions, who they were invited by, etc
data_chat_messages - holds the actual messages of chats
With my query, I am trying to fetch the info from data_chat_parties related to the party requesting this information (ie currently logged in user), but also get the total number of chat parties in the chat.
SELECT
data_chats.id AS chat,
data_chats_parties.*,
COUNT(data_chats_parties.id) AS total_parties,
data_chats_messages.created AS last_message_created,
data_chats_messages.author AS last_message_author,
data_chats_messages.author_type AS last_message_author_type,
data_chats_messages.message AS last_message
FROM data_chats
LEFT JOIN data_chats_parties ON data_chats_parties.chat=data_chats.id
LEFT JOIN data_chats_messages ON data_chats_messages.chat=data_chats.id AND data_chats_messages.active=1
WHERE
data_chats.active=1 AND
data_chats_parties.member=1 AND
data_chats_parties.status >= 1
GROUP BY data_chats_parties.chat
ORDER BY last_message_created DESC
This all works fine, except that total_chat_parties always returns 1, presumably because it's only matching the record of data_chats_parties.member=1. How would I fetch the party record specific to this user but at the same time, fetch the total number of parties for this chat?
You should use a correlated query :
SELECT data_chats.id AS chat,
(SELECT COUNT(data_chats_parties.id) FROM data_chats_parties
WHERE data_chats_parties.chat = data_chats.id) AS total_parties,
data_chats_messages.created AS last_message_created,
data_chats_messages.author AS last_message_author,
data_chats_messages.author_type AS last_message_author_type,
data_chats_messages.message AS last_message
FROM data_chats
LEFT JOIN data_chats_messages
ON data_chats_messages.chat = data_chats.id
AND data_chats_messages.active = 1
AND data_chats_parties.member = 1
AND data_chats_parties.status >= 1
WHERE data_chats.active = 1
ORDER BY last_message_created DESC
Another thing is the conditions on the WHERE clause, you can filter the RIGHT table of a LEFT JOIN in the WHERE clause, those condition should only be specified in the ON clause.
You also group by a column from the RIGHT table - this is not suggested at all! Either use an inner join, or group by another field.
you may be able to use a subquery in the select statement to give you the desired count.
(select COUNT(data_chats_parties.id) from data_chats_parties where data_chats_parties.chat=data_chats.id) AS total_parties,
Also you can then remove the line
LEFT JOIN data_chats_parties ON data_chats_parties.chat=data_chats.id
Hopefully I've typed that all correctly =)

Include NULL as 0 in COUNT SQL Query

I know for a fact this has been asked a few times before, but none of the answered questions relating to this seem to work or are far too confusing for me..
I should probably explain.
I'm trying to create an AJAX script to run to order some results by the number of 'Likes' it has.
My current code is this:
SELECT COUNT(*) AS total, likes.palette_id, palette.*
FROM likes LEFT JOIN palette ON likes.palette_id = palette.palette_id
GROUP BY likes.palette_id
ORDER BY total DESC
Which works fine, however it doesn't list the results with 0 likes for obvious reasons, they don't exist in the table.
I've attached images of the current tables:
Likes table:
http://imgur.com/EGeR3On
Palette table:
http://imgur.com/fKZmSve
There are no results in the likes table until the user clicks 'Like'. It is then that the database gets updated and the palette_id and user_id are inserted.
I'm trying to count how many times *palette_id* occurs in the likes table but also display 0 for all palettes that don't appear in the likes table.
Is this possible? If so, can someone help me out at all?
Thank you
It might not be the exact MySQL syntax (I'm used to SQL Server), but should be pretty straight forward to translate if needed.
SELECT p.*, IFNULL(l.total, 0) AS total
FROM palette p
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT palette_id, COUNT(*) AS total
FROM likes
GROUP BY palette_id
) l
ON l.palette_id = p.palette_id
ORDER BY total
Try this:
SELECT COUNT(likes.palette_id) AS total, palette.palette_id, palette.*
FROM palette LEFT JOIN likes ON likes.palette_id = palette.palette_id
GROUP BY palette.palette_id
ORDER BY total DESC
EDIT:
In regards to the discussion about listing columns that are not in the GROUP BY, there's a good explanation in this MySql documentation page.
MySQL extends the use of GROUP BY so that the select list can refer
to nonaggregated columns not named in the GROUP BY clause. This means
that the preceding query is legal in MySQL. You can use this feature
to get better performance by avoiding unnecessary column sorting and
grouping. However, this is useful primarily when all values in each
nonaggregated column not named in the GROUP BY are the same for each
group. The server is free to choose any value from each group, so
unless they are the same, the values chosen are indeterminate.
In this example, the palette information not added to the GROUP BY will be the same for each group because we are grouping by palette_id so there won't be any issue using palette.*
Your join is written backwards. It should be palette LEFT JOIN likes, because you want all rows in palette and rows in likes, if they exist. The "all rows in palette" will get you a palette_id for the entries there without any matching "likes."

mysql join not working

I have two tables: "users" and "posts." The posts table has a 'post' column and a 'poster_id' column. I'm working on a PHP page that shows the latest posts by everyone, like this:
SELECT * FROM posts WHERE id < '$whatever' LIMIT 10
This way, I can print each result like this:
id: 43, poster_id:'4', post: hello, world
id: 44, poster_id:'4', post: hello, ward
id: 45, poster_id:'5', post: oh hi!
etc...
Instead of the id, I would like to display the NAME of the poster (there's a column for it in the 'users' table)
I've tried the following:
SELECT *
FROM posts
WHERE id < '$whatever'
INNER JOIN users
ON posts.poster_id = users.id LIMIT 10
Is this the correct type of join for this task? Before learning about joins, I would query the users table for each post result. The result should end up looking similar to this:
id: 43, poster_id:'4', name:'foo', post: hello, world
id: 44, poster_id:'4', name:'foo', post: hello, ward
id: 45, poster_id:'5', name:'fee', post: oh hi!
etc...
Thanks for helping in advance.
WHERE clause must come after the FROM clause.
SELECT posts.*, users.* // select your desired columns
FROM posts
INNER JOIN users ON posts.poster_id = users.id
WHERE id < '$whatever'
LIMIT 10
the SQL Order of Operation is as follows:
FROM clause
WHERE clause
GROUP BY clause
HAVING clause
SELECT clause
ORDER BY clause
UPDATE 1
For those column names that exists on both tables, add an ALIAS on them so it can be uniquely identified. example,
SELECT post.colName as PostCol,
users.colName as UserCol, ....
FROM ....
on the example above, both tables has column name colName. In order to get them both, you need to add alias on them so in your front end, use PostCol and UserCol to get their values.
Try:
SELECT *
FROM posts
INNER JOIN users ON posts.poster_id = users.id
WHERE posts.id < '$whatever'
LIMIT 10
Got the syntax a little incorrect.
Should be
SELECT * FROM posts
INNER JOIN users ON posts.poster_id = users.id
WHERE id < '$whatever' LIMIT 10
The answers already given tell you the main reason for your query not working at all (ie the WHERE clause should come after the JOIN clauses), however, I'd like to make a couple of additional points:
I would suggest using an OUTER JOIN for this. It probably won't make much difference, but in the event of a post record having an invalid poster_id, an INNER JOIN will mean the record is dropped from the results, whereas an OUTER JOIN will mean that the record is included, but the values from the users table will be null. I imagine you don't want to ever have an invalid poster_id on the posts table, but broken data does happen even in the best regulated system, and it is helpful in these cases to still get the data from the query.
I would strongly suggest not doing SELECT *, and instead itemising the fields you want to get back from the query. SELECT * has a number of problems, but it's particularly bad when you have multiple tables in the query, because if you have fields with the same name on both tables, (eg id), then it becomes very hard to distinguish which one you're working with, as your PHP recordset won't include the table reference. Itemising the fields may make your query string longer, but it won't make it any slower - if anything it'll be quicker - and it will be easier to work with in the long run.
Neither of these points are essential; the query will work without them (as long as you switch the WHERE clause to after the JOIN), but they may improve your query and hopefully also improve your understanding of SQL.

User specified content sharing like G+

I'm building a site that requires sharing with either group(s) or individual user(s). I know for a fact that google does not use mysql, but i was wondering how i could replicate such feature on my site. On g+, one can:
Share a post with the "public" (everyone can see it).
Share a post with "all circles" (everyone in your circles can see it).
Share a post with both circles and individual users. E.g. post = "my first post" and is shared with family,friends, user 1(Joey tribbiani), user 2 (Ross geller) etc.
Conditions:
If a post is shared with a circle and a new user is added to the circle, then (s)he should be able to see all the previous posts shared with that circle.
If a user is removed from a circle. (s)he cannot see posts shared with that circle except posts (s)he has commented on.
Currently my database tables look like this.
Circle_category
Cat_id
Cat_name
user_id
Posts
post_id
user_id
post
is_public
all_circle
Post_to_circle
entry_id
post_id
cat_id
Post_to_user
entry_id
post_id
user_id
Post a user in family circle(which is in Circle_category with cat_id of 1 ) can see
They can see posts that are public.
They can see posts shared with all circles.
They can see posts shared with family circle.
They can see posts shared with them (Individual user).
SQL
SELECT p.* FROM posts p
JOIN Post_to_circle pc
ON p.post_id = pc.post_id
JOIN Post_to_user pu
ON p.post_id = pu.post_id
WHERE p.is_public = 1
OR all_circle = 1
OR pc.cat_id = $cat_id
OR pu.user_id = $user_id
Quetions:
Firstly, I've been able to get posts from case 1(see all public post), case 2 (Posts shared with all circles) but the other 2 cases do not work. I thought about it and saw that the main problem is that i specified the where clause to get posts where p.is_public = 1 which means it neglets rows where p.is_public = 0. How do i update the query so it shows posts covering all four cases and also covers the conditions we talked about at the beginning.
Secondly, is there a better way to structure my tables? i'm not sure i'm doing it the right way.
From a quick read trough, all i can say is:
you are using a join statement instead of a left join statement.
using join means:
keep all rows from the table used in from-clause that validate true for the condition specified in that join clause.
since you are using 2 statements, the first join throws away all the records that dont have the needed join, the second join throws away all the records that dont have the needed join in the second one, but it only uses records that matched the first join.
you should use left join instead. this keeps all rows from the first table. all rows that didnt have a match, get the values NULL for the columns specified in the joined table(s)
simple example:
users table:
user_id
name
user_posts
post_id
user_id
content
created
related queries:
select *
from users u
JOIN user_posts up on up.user_id = u.user_id and up.created > date_sub(curdate(), interval 1 day)
this will use all users and make match with each post that was created less then a day ago by that user.
if the user didnt have a post in the last day, he will NOT be in the resultset.
change this example to
select *
from users u
LEFT JOIN user_posts up on up.user_id = u.user_id and up.created > date_sub(curdate(), interval 1 day)
this will use all users and make a match with each post that was created less then a day ago by that user
if the user hasn't posted in the last day, he will STILL be in the resultset, but all the columns from the posts table will be NULL
the where filters all the rows you have left after the joins. (mysql will use where clauses before joining, if they can speed up the query).
altering your query:
make sure the clauses in where statement are wrapped between () for all the different cases. ALSO this is NOT the complete answer, as there is info missing (example user tables, circle relation tables, friend relations)
also the all_circles option confuses me, so it's missing from the query, but this should get you on the right track
SELECT p.* FROM posts p
left JOIN Post_to_circle pc
ON p.post_id = pc.post_id and /* define statement for valid circles for user you're trying to get the posts for */
left JOIN Post_to_user pu
ON p.post_id = pu.post_id and /* define statement for valid friends for user you're trying to get the posts for */
WHERE
/* 1 day old */
p.created > date_sub(curdate(), interval 1 day)
AND (
/* is public */
p.is_public = 1 OR
/* or to friends */
pu.id is not null OR
/* or to circles */
pc.id is not null
)
Also, i'm suspecting you'll need 2 subqueries, which is not the best thing to do, and my advise would be to find all correct ids for the friends, and all ids for the valid circles and then using an IN clause in each join statement (part thats in comment)

MySQL LEFT JOIN, INNER JOIN etc, complicated query, PHP + MySQL for a forum

So I've got a little forum I'm trying to get data for, there are 4 tables, forum, forum_posts, forum_threads and users. What i'm trying to do is to get the latest post for each forum and giving the user a sneak peek of that post, i want to get the number of posts and number of threads in each forum aswell. Also, i want to do this in one query. So here's what i came up with:
SELECT lfx_forum_posts.*, lfx_forum.*, COUNT(lfx_forum_posts.pid) as posts_count,
lfx_users.username,
lfx_users.uid,
lfx_forum_threads.tid, lfx_forum_threads.parent_forum as t_parent,
lfx_forum_threads.text as t_text, COUNT(lfx_forum_threads.tid) as thread_count
FROM
lfx_forum
LEFT JOIN
(lfx_forum_threads
INNER JOIN
(lfx_forum_posts
INNER JOIN lfx_users
ON lfx_users.uid = lfx_forum_posts.author)
ON lfx_forum_threads.tid = lfx_forum_posts.parent_thread AND lfx_forum_posts.pid =
(SELECT MAX(lfx_forum_posts.pid)
FROM lfx_forum_posts
WHERE lfx_forum_posts.parent_forum = lfx_forum.fid
GROUP BY lfx_forum_posts.parent_forum)
)
ON lfx_forum.fid = lfx_forum_posts.parent_forum
GROUP BY lfx_forum.fid
ORDER BY lfx_forum.fid ASC
This get the latest post in each forum and gives me a sneakpeek of it, the problem is that
lfx_forum_posts.pid =
(SELECT MAX(lfx_forum_posts.pid)
FROM lfx_forum_posts
WHERE lfx_forum_posts.parent_forum = lfx_forum.fid
GROUP BY lfx_forum_posts.parent_forum)
Makes my COUNT(lfx_forum_posts.pid) go to one (aswell as the COUNT(lfx_forum_threads.tid) which isn't how i would like it to work. My question is: is there some somewhat easy way to make it show the correct number and at the same time fetch the correct post info (the latest one that is)?
If something is unclear please tell and i'll try to explain my issue further, it's my first time posting something here.
Hard to get an overview of the structure of your tables with only one big query like that.
Have you considered making a view to make it easier and faster to run the query?
Why do you have to keep it in one query? Personally I find that you can often gain both performance and code-readability by splitting overly complicated queries into more parts.
But hard to get an overview so can't really give a good answer to your question:)
Just add num_posts column to your table. Don't count posts with COUNT().
Can we get some...
Show Tables;
Desc Table lfx_forum_posts;
Desc Table lfx_forum_threads;
Desc Table lfx_forum_users;
Desc Table lfx_forum;
Here's some pseudo code
select f.*, (select count(*) from forum_posts fp where fp.forum_id = f.id) as num_posts,
(select count(*) from forum_threads ft where ft.forum_id = f.id) as num_threads,
(select max(fp.id) from forum_posts fp
where fp.id = f.id
) as latest_post_id,
from forums f;
Then go on to use latest_post_id in a seperate query to get it's information.
if it doesn't like using f before it's declared then make a temporary table for this then you update every time the query is ran.

Categories