How to join a table with specific conditions - mysql

Question

I would like to select data from a table like this (the table name is conversations_users) :
I would like to be able to retrieve a conversation ID that includes only two users. As instance, if I search a conversation specific to users 1 and 3 the conversation number 6 should be the unique result, because the conversation 5 also includes user 2.
I have tried to perform a request like
SELECT * FROM conversations_users AS table1 JOIN
conversations_users AS table2 ON
table1.conversation_ID = table2.conversationID
WHERE table1.userID = 3 AND
table2.userID = 1
But it returns both conversations 5 and 6. How can I fix that ?
Thank you in advance,
Pierre

Answer 1

Add the ON clause:
SELECT * FROM conversations_users AS table1 JOIN
conversations_users AS table2
ON table1.conversation_ID = table2.conversation_ID
WHERE table1.userID = 3 AND
table2.userID = 1
Update:
To get only coversations, where only 1 and 3 are involved, you can use having clause:
SELECT table1.conversation_ID FROM conversations_users AS table1 JOIN
conversations_users AS table2
ON table1.conversation_ID = table2.conversation_ID
WHERE table1.userID = 3 AND
table2.userID = 1
Group by table1.conversation_ID
having Count(*) = 2

Answer 2

The query you need looks like:
SELECT conversation_ID, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT userID ORDER BY userID) as users
FROM conversations_users
GROUP BY conversation_ID
HAVING users = '1,3'
The GROUP BY clause groups the rows having the same conversation_ID and from each group it generates a new record that contains the conversation_ID and the distinct values of userID, in ascending order, concatenated with comma (,).
The HAVING clause keeps only those records that have '1,3' in the column users computed by the GROUP BY clause.
The query produces the output you need but it is not efficient because it reads the entire table. It could be more efficient by picking first the conversations of users 1 and 3 and then applying the above only to them.
It looks like this:
SELECT conversation_ID, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT userID ORDER BY userID) as users
FROM (
SELECT *
FROM conversations_users
WHERE userID in (1, 3)
) conversations
GROUP BY conversation_ID
HAVING users = '1,3'
In order to work faster than the previous query, the conversations_users must have an index on the userID column.

Answer 3

If you want to restrict to those conversations which involve exactly n number of users. I think below generic query should work. Replacing 'n' as per requirement.
select *
from conversations_users
where conversation_id IN (select conversation_id
from conversations_users
group by conversation_id
having count(userid) = 2)
Thanks,
Amitabh

Answer 4

The inner select grabs all conversationIDs with other users than 1 or 3
the outer select (with distinct) collects all conversations wich are NOT in this subset
SELECT DISTINCT conversationID
FROM conversations_users t1
WHERE conversationID NOT IN ( SELECT conversationID
FROM conversations_users
WHERE userID NOT in (1, 3)
)

Answer 5

You can use join with where condition in this case.
SELECT #, userid ,conversation_ID FROM user AS table1 JOIN
conversations_users AS table2
ON user_ID = conversation_ID
WHERE table1.userID = 3 AND
table2.userID = 1
Group by conversation_ID
You can apply suitable condition by where clause instead of group by