Getting the most recent row and linking it with another table? - mysql

Question

Im trying to get the most recent row of a table
user_quiz:
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------------+------------+
|quiz_id |userid | module_id |number_of_questions| user_score |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------------+-------- ---+
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 9 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 9 |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------------+------------+
I have used the query:
SELECT * FROM user_quiz WHERE userid = 1 ORDER BY quiz_id DESC LIMIT 1
which correctly retrieves the last row.
However I want to link the module_id with another table:
module:
+---------+------------+
|module_id|module_name |
+---------+------------+
| 1 | Forces |
| 2 | Electricity|
+---------+------------+
And retrieve the module name.
The result of the query will be used to print out the users most recent quiz:
Most recent quiz: Forces - Number of questions: 10 - User Score: 9
Is this possible using just one query?

Answer 1

You just need a JOIN:
SELECT uq.*, m.module_name
FROM user_quiz uq JOIN
modules m
ON uq.module_id = m.module_id
WHERE uq.userid = 1
ORDER BY uq.quiz_id DESC
LIMIT 1;

Answer 2

A more simple query to achieve the same would be
SELECT
user_quiz.quiz_id,
user_quiz.number_of_questions,
user_quiz.user_score,
modules .module_name
FROM user_quiz JOIN modules
ON user_quiz.module_id = modules.module_id
WHERE user_quiz.userid = 1
ORDER BY user_quiz.quiz_id DESC
LIMIT 1
If you want to get the same results for all the users, you could use a bit more sophisticated query
SELECT
user_quiz_virtual_table.userid,
user_quiz_virtual_table.quiz_id,
user_quiz_virtual_table.number_of_questions,
user_quiz_virtual_table.user_score,
modules.module_name
FROM (
SELECT
user_quiz.userid
user_quiz.quiz_id,
user_quiz.module_id
user_quiz.number_of_questions,
user_quiz.user_score
FROM user_quiz
ORDER BY user_quiz.quiz_id DESC
GROUP BY userid
) AS user_quiz_virtual_table
JOIN modules ON user_quiz_virtual_table.module_id = modules.module_id