Select 10 records associated with each key - mysql

Question

Here is the case I have two tables tags and customers as the following structure
Tags Table
ID Name
1 Tag1
2 Tag2
Customers Table
ID Tag_ID Name
1 1 C1
2 2 C2
3 1 C3
I want a SQL statement to get the first 10 customers (alphabetically) for each tag? is it possible to be done in one query.
P.S the data in the tables are sample data not the actual data

Answer 1

Consider the following:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS tags;
CREATE TABLE tags
(tag_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
,name VARCHAR(12) NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO tags VALUES
(1,'One'),
(2,'Two'),
(3,'Three'),
(4,'Four'),
(5,'Five'),
(6,'Six');
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS customers;
CREATE TABLE customers
(customer_id INT NOT NULL
,customer VARCHAR(12)
);
INSERT INTO customers VALUES
(1,'Dave'),
(2,'Ben'),
(3,'Charlie'),
(4,'Michael'),
(5,'Steve'),
(6,'Clive'),
(7,'Alice'),
(8,'Ken'),
(9,'Petra');
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS customer_tag;
CREATE TABLE customer_tag
(customer_id INT NOT NULL
,tag_ID INT NOT NULL
,PRIMARY KEY(customer_id,tag_id)
);
INSERT INTO customer_tag VALUES
(1,1),
(1,2),
(1,4),
(2,3),
(2,2),
(3,1),
(4,4),
(4,2),
(5,2),
(5,5),
(5,6),
(6,6);
The following query returns all customers associated with each tag, and their respective 'rank' when sorted alphabetically...
SELECT t.*, c1.*, COUNT(ct2.tag_id) rank
FROM tags t
JOIN customer_tag ct1
ON ct1.tag_id = t.tag_id
JOIN customers c1
ON c1.customer_id = ct1.customer_id
JOIN customer_tag ct2
ON ct2.tag_id = ct1.tag_id
JOIN customers c2
ON c2.customer_id = ct2.customer_id
AND c2.customer <= c1.customer
GROUP
BY t.tag_id, c1.customer_id
ORDER
BY t.tag_id,rank;
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+------+
| tag_id | name | customer_id | customer | rank |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+------+
| 1 | One | 3 | Charlie | 1 |
| 1 | One | 1 | Dave | 2 |
| 2 | Two | 2 | Ben | 1 |
| 2 | Two | 1 | Dave | 2 |
| 2 | Two | 4 | Michael | 3 |
| 2 | Two | 5 | Steve | 4 |
| 3 | Three | 2 | Ben | 1 |
| 4 | Four | 1 | Dave | 1 |
| 4 | Four | 4 | Michael | 2 |
| 5 | Five | 5 | Steve | 1 |
| 6 | Six | 6 | Clive | 1 |
| 6 | Six | 5 | Steve | 2 |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+------+
If we just want the top 2, say, for each tag, we can rewrite that as follows...
SELECT t.*
, c1.*
FROM tags t
JOIN customer_tag ct1
ON ct1.tag_id = t.tag_id
JOIN customers c1
ON c1.customer_id = ct1.customer_id
JOIN customer_tag ct2
ON ct2.tag_id = ct1.tag_id
JOIN customers c2
ON c2.customer_id = ct2.customer_id
AND c2.customer <= c1.customer
GROUP
BY t.tag_id, c1.customer_id
HAVING COUNT(ct2.tag_id) <=2
ORDER
BY t.tag_id, c1.customer;
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+
| tag_id | name | customer_id | customer |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+
| 1 | One | 3 | Charlie |
| 1 | One | 1 | Dave |
| 2 | Two | 2 | Ben |
| 2 | Two | 1 | Dave |
| 3 | Three | 2 | Ben |
| 4 | Four | 1 | Dave |
| 4 | Four | 4 | Michael |
| 5 | Five | 5 | Steve |
| 6 | Six | 6 | Clive |
| 6 | Six | 5 | Steve |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+
This is fine, but where performance is an issue, a solution like the following will be faster - although you may need to run SET NAMES utf8; prior to constructing the tables (as I had to) in order for it to work properly:
SELECT tag_id, name, customer_id,customer
FROM
(
SELECT t.*
, c.*
, CASE WHEN #prev=t.tag_id THEN #i:=#i+1 ELSE #i:=1 END rank
, #prev := t.tag_id
FROM tags t
JOIN customer_tag ct
ON ct.tag_id = t.tag_id
JOIN customers c
ON c.customer_id = ct.customer_id
JOIN ( SELECT #i:=1, #prev:=0) vars
ORDER
BY t.tag_id
, c.customer
) x
WHERE rank <=2
ORDER
BY tag_id,customer;
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+
| tag_id | name | customer_id | customer |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+
| 1 | One | 3 | Charlie |
| 1 | One | 1 | Dave |
| 2 | Two | 2 | Ben |
| 2 | Two | 1 | Dave |
| 3 | Three | 2 | Ben |
| 4 | Four | 1 | Dave |
| 4 | Four | 4 | Michael |
| 5 | Five | 5 | Steve |
| 6 | Six | 6 | Clive |
| 6 | Six | 5 | Steve |
+--------+-------+-------------+----------+

Answer 2

To achieve this, we have to use two session variables, one for the row number and the other for storing the old customer ID to compare it with the current one as the following query:
select c.name, #row_number:=CASE
WHEN #cid = c.id THEN #row_number + 1
ELSE 1
END AS rows,
#id:=c.id as CustomerId from tags t, customers c where t.id=c.id group by c.name where Rows<=10
We used CASE statement in the query. If the customer number remains the same, we increase the row_number variable
Reference

Answer 3

Your question reminds me of this one (see especially the top-voted answer), so I came up with this query:
SELECT Tags.ID,
Tags.Name,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(GROUP_CONCAT(Customers.Name
ORDER BY Customers.Name),
',', 10) AS Customers
FROM Customers
INNER JOIN Tags
ON Tags.ID = Customers.Tag_ID
GROUP BY Tags.ID
ORDER BY Tags.Id;
It works, but this is clearly a hacky way to do this, because MySQL does not offer yet tools to do this more naturally.