How to Make This SQL Query More Efficient? - mysql

Question

I'm not sure how to make the following SQL query more efficient. Right now, the query is taking 8 - 12 seconds on a pretty fast server, but that's not close to fast enough for a Website when users are trying to load a page with this code on it. It's looking through tables with many rows, for instance the "Post" table has 717,873 rows. Basically, the query lists all Posts related to what the user is following (newest to oldest).
Is there a way to make it faster by only getting the last 20 results total based on PostTimeOrder?
Any help would be much appreciated or insight on anything that can be done to improve this situation. Thank you.
Here's the full SQL query (lots of nesting):
SELECT DISTINCT p.Id, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p.PostCreationTime) AS PostCreationTime, p.Content AS Content, p.Bu AS Bu, p.Se AS Se, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p.PostCreationTime) AS PostTimeOrder
FROM Post p
WHERE (p.Id IN (SELECT pc.PostId
FROM PostCreator pc
WHERE (pc.UserId IN (SELECT uf.FollowedId
FROM UserFollowing uf
WHERE uf.FollowingId = '100')
OR pc.UserId = '100')
))
OR (p.Id IN (SELECT pum.PostId
FROM PostUserMentions pum
WHERE (pum.UserId IN (SELECT uf.FollowedId
FROM UserFollowing uf
WHERE uf.FollowingId = '100')
OR pum.UserId = '100')
))
OR (p.Id IN (SELECT ssp.PostId
FROM SStreamPost ssp
WHERE (ssp.SStreamId IN (SELECT ssf.SStreamId
FROM SStreamFollowing ssf
WHERE ssf.UserId = '100'))
))
OR (p.Id IN (SELECT psm.PostId
FROM PostSMentions psm
WHERE (psm.StockId IN (SELECT sf.StockId
FROM StockFollowing sf
WHERE sf.UserId = '100' ))
))
UNION ALL
SELECT DISTINCT p.Id AS Id, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p.PostCreationTime) AS PostCreationTime, p.Content AS Content, p.Bu AS Bu, p.Se AS Se, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(upe.PostEchoTime) AS PostTimeOrder
FROM Post p
INNER JOIN UserPostE upe
on p.Id = upe.PostId
INNER JOIN UserFollowing uf
on (upe.UserId = uf.FollowedId AND (uf.FollowingId = '100' OR upe.UserId = '100'))
ORDER BY PostTimeOrder DESC;

Answer 1

Changing your p.ID in (...) predicates to existence predicates with correlated subqueries may help. Also since both halves of your union all query are pulling from the Post table and possibly returning nearly identical records you might be able to combine the two into one query by left outer joining to UserPostE and adding upe.PostID is not null as an OR condition in the WHERE clause. UserFollowing will still inner join to UPE. If you want the same Post record twice once with upe.PostEchoTime and once with p.PostCreationTime as the PostTimeOrder you'll need keep the UNION ALL
SELECT
DISTINCT -- <<=- May not be needed
p.Id
, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(p.PostCreationTime) AS PostCreationTime
, p.Content AS Content
, p.Bu AS Bu
, p.Se AS Se
, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(coalesce( upe.PostEchoTime
, p.PostCreationTime)) AS PostTimeOrder
FROM Post p
LEFT JOIN UserPostE upe
INNER JOIN UserFollowing uf
on (upe.UserId = uf.FollowedId AND
(uf.FollowingId = '100' OR
upe.UserId = '100'))
on p.Id = upe.PostId
WHERE upe.PostID is not null
or exists (SELECT 1
FROM PostCreator pc
WHERE pc.PostId = p.ID
and pc.UserId = '100'
or exists (SELECT 1
FROM UserFollowing uf
WHERE uf.FollowedId = pc.UserID
and uf.FollowingId = '100')
)
OR exists (SELECT 1
FROM PostUserMentions pum
WHERE pum.PostId = p.ID
and pum.UserId = '100'
or exists (SELECT 1
FROM UserFollowing uf
WHERE uf.FollowedId = pum.UserId
and uf.FollowingId = '100')
)
OR exists (SELECT 1
FROM SStreamPost ssp
WHERE ssp.PostId = p.ID
and exists (SELECT 1
FROM SStreamFollowing ssf
WHERE ssf.SStreamId = ssp.SStreamId
and ssf.UserId = '100')
)
OR exists (SELECT 1
FROM PostSMentions psm
WHERE psm.PostId = p.ID
and exists (SELECT
FROM StockFollowing sf
WHERE sf.StockId = psm.StockId
and sf.UserId = '100' )
)
ORDER BY PostTimeOrder DESC
The from section could alternatively be rewritten to also use an existence clause with a correlated sub query:
FROM Post p
LEFT JOIN UserPostE upe
on p.Id = upe.PostId
and ( upe.UserId = '100'
or exists (select 1
from UserFollowing uf
where uf.FollwedID = upe.UserID
and uf.FollowingId = '100'))

Answer 2

Turn IN ( SELECT ... ) into a JOIN .. ON ... (see below)
Turn OR into UNION (see below)
Some the tables are many:many mappings? Such as SStreamFollowing? Follow the tips in http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/index_cookbook_mysql#many_to_many_mapping_table
Example of IN:
SELECT ssp.PostId
FROM SStreamPost ssp
WHERE (ssp.SStreamId IN (
SELECT ssf.SStreamId
FROM SStreamFollowing ssf
WHERE ssf.UserId = '100' ))
-->
SELECT ssp.PostId
FROM SStreamPost ssp
JOIN SStreamFollowing ssf ON ssp.SStreamId = ssf.SStreamId
WHERE ssf.UserId = '100'
The big WHERE with all the INs becomes something like
JOIN ( ( SELECT pc.PostId AS id ... )
UNION ( SELECT pum.PostId ... )
UNION ( SELECT ssp.PostId ... )
UNION ( SELECT psm.PostId ... ) )
Get what you can done of that those suggestions, then come back for more advice if you still need it. And bring SHOW CREATE TABLE with you.