select taking 9.+ seconds. how to re-write it better? - mysql

Question

I have this select:
select t.id, c.user, t.title, pp.foto, t.data from topics t
inner join cadastro c on t.user = c.id
left join profile_picture pp on t.user = pp.user
left join (
select c.topic, MAX(c.data) cdata from comments c
group by c.topic
)c on t.id = c.topic
where t.community = ?
order by ifnull(cdata, t.data) desc
limit 15
I want to select topics and order them by their date or the date of the topic comments, if it has comments.
Unfortunately, this is taking more than 9 seconds.
I don't think the problem here is indexing, but the way I am writing the select itself.
`topics` (
`id` int(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`user` INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`title` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`description` varchar(1000),
`community` INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`data` datetime NOT NULL,
`ip` varchar(20),
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
FOREIGN KEY (`user`) REFERENCES cadastro (`id`),
FOREIGN KEY (`community`) REFERENCES discussion (`id`)
)
`comments` (
`id` int(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`user` INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`comment` varchar(1000) NOT NULL,
`topic` INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`data` datetime NOT NULL,
`ip` varchar(20),
`delete` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
FOREIGN KEY (`user`) REFERENCES cadastro (`id`),
FOREIGN KEY (`topic`) REFERENCES topics (`id`)
)

Answer 1

Your EXPLAIN gives you a strong hint. The first row in that results says, using temporary, using filesort implying that it's not using a an index.
It might be possible to improve this query by adding indexes and removing some conditionals, but I think in this case a better solution exists.
Why not add a new column to topics that indicates the last time a comment was added? (like a last_modified). Every time a comment gets added, just update that column for that topic as well.
It's effectively denormalizing this. I think this a valid usecase and it's always going to be faster than fixing this messy query.

Answer 2

You are performing a full table scan on the table comments on every query. How many rows does it have? At least create the following index:
comments (topic, data);
to avoid reading the whole table every time.

Answer 3

I know you've said you don't think the problem is indexing, but 9 out of 10 times I've had this problem that's exactly what it's been down to.
Ensure you have an index created on each table that you're using in the query and include the columns specified in the join.
Also, as NiVeR said, don't use the same alias multiple times.
Here's a refactoring of that query, unsure if I've mixed up or missed a column name/alias or two though.
select t.id, c.user, t.title, pp.foto, t.data from topics t
inner join cadastro c on t.user = c.id
left join profile_picture pp on t.user = pp.user
left join (
select com.topic, MAX(com.data) comdata from comments com
group by com.topic
)com1 on t.id = com1.topic
where t.community = ?
order by ifnull(com1.comdata, t.data) desc
limit 15