Optimizing INNER JOIN across multiple tables - mysql

Question

I have trawled many of the similar responses on this site and have improved my code at several stages along the way. Unfortunately, this 3-row query still won't run.
I have one table with 100k+ rows and about 30 columns of which I can filter down to 3-rows (in this example) and then perform INNER JOINs across 21 small lookup tables.
In my first attempt, I was lazy and used implicit joins.
SELECT `master_table`.*, `lookup_table`.`data_point` x 21
FROM `lookup_table` x 21
WHERE `master_table`.`indexed_col` = "value"
AND `lookup_table`.`id` = `lookup_col` x 21
The query looked to be timing out:
#2013 - Lost connection to MySQL server during query
Following this, I tried being explicit about the joins.
SELECT `master_table`.*, `lookup_table`.`data_point` x 21
FROM `master_table`
INNER JOIN `lookup_table` ON `lookup_table`.`id` = `master_table`.`lookup_col` x 21
WHERE `master_table`.`indexed_col` = "value"
Still got the same result. I then realised that the query was probably trying to perform the joins first, then filter down via the WHERE clause. So after a bit more research, I learned how I could apply a subquery to perform the filter first and then perform the joins on the newly created table. This is where I got to, and it still returns the same error. Is there any way I can improve this query further?
SELECT `temp_table`.*, `lookup_table`.`data_point` x 21
FROM (SELECT * FROM `master_table` WHERE `indexed_col` = "value") as `temp_table`
INNER JOIN `lookup_table` ON `lookup_table`.`id` = `temp_table`.`lookup_col` x 21
Is this the best way to write up this kind of query? I tested the subquery to ensure it only returns a small table and can confirm that it returns only three rows.

Answer 1

First, at its most simple aspect you are looking for
select
mt.*
from
Master_Table mt
where
mt.indexed_col = 'value'
That is probably instantaneous provided you have an index on your master table on the given indexed_col in the first position (in case you had a compound index of many fields)…
Now, if I am understanding you correctly on your different lookup columns (21 in total), you have just simplified them for redundancy in this post, but actually doing something in the effect of
select
mt.*,
lt1.lookupDescription1,
lt2.lookupDescription2,
...
lt21.lookupDescription21
from
Master_Table mt
JOIN Lookup_Table1 lt1
on mt.lookup_col1 = lt1.pk_col1
JOIN Lookup_Table2 lt2
on mt.lookup_col2 = lt2.pk_col2
...
JOIN Lookup_Table21 lt21
on mt.lookup_col21 = lt21.pk_col21
where
mt.indexed_col = 'value'
I had a project well over a decade ago dealing with a similar situation... the Master table had about 21+ million records and had to join to about 30+ lookup tables. The system crawled and queried died after running a query after more than 24 hrs.
This too was on a MySQL server and the fix was a single MySQL keyword...
Select STRAIGHT_JOIN mt.*, ...
By having your master table in the primary position, where clause and its criteria directly on the master table, you are good. You know the relationships of the tables. Do the query in the exact order I presented it to you. Don't try to think for me on this and try to optimize based on a subsidiary table that may have smaller record count and somehow think that will help the query faster... it won't.
Try the STRAIGHT_JOIN keyword. It took the query I was working on and finished it in about 1.5 hrs... it was returning all 21 million rows with all corresponding lookup key descriptions for final output, hence still needed a longer duration than just 3 records.

Answer 2

First, don't use a subquery. Write the query as:
SELECT mt.*, lt.`data_point`
FROM `master_table` mt INNER JOIN
`lookup_table` l
ON l.`id` = mt.`lookup_col`
WHERE mt.`indexed_col` = value;
The indexes that you want are master_table(value, lookup_col) and lookup_table(id, data_point).
If you are still having performance problems, then there are multiple possibilities. High among them is that the result set is simply too big to return in a reasonable amount of time. To see if that is the case, you can use select count(*) to count the number of returned rows.