Multiple joins on the same table with counting in one query - mysql

Question

I have an elementary question about SQL query with joining the same table twice. It sounds very simple, but I have some troubles with it. I hope, anyone can help me with this issue :)
I have two little tables: "peoples" (columns: id, name, ...) and "likes" (id, who, whom). People may set the "likes" to each other. The relationship is many to many.
I want get the table with peoples likes: count of received "likes", delivered and count of mutual likes.
All is correctly, when I use only one join. But for two joins (or more) MySQL combine all rows (as expected) and I get wrong values in counts. I don't know, how I must use count/sum/group-by operators in this case:( I would like to do this without subqueries in one query.
I used a query like this:
SELECT *, count(l1.whom), count(l2.whom)
FROM people p
LEFT JOIN likes l1 ON l1.who = p.id
LEFT JOIN likes l2 ON l2.whom = p.id
GROUP BY p.id;
SELECT p.id, name,
count(lwho.who) delivered_likes,
count(lwhom.whom) received_likes,
count(lmut.who) mutual_likes
FROM people AS p
LEFT JOIN likes AS lwho ON p.id = lwho.who
LEFT JOIN likes AS lwhom ON lwhom.id = lwho.id
LEFT JOIN likes AS lmut ON lwhom.who = lmut.whom AND lwhom.whom = lmut.who
GROUP BY p.id;
But it's calculated the counts of likes incorrect.
It's issue just for training and performance is not important, but I guess, that three joins in my last query is too much. Can I do it using 2 joins?
Thanks in advance for help.

Answer 1

I surmise that there is a 1:N relationship between people and likes.
One problem with your second query, as far as I can tell, is that the lwhom correlation of likes is joined to lwho via id=id. Basically lwhom is lwho. I'd recommend changing the ON clause for this correlation from lwhom.id = lwho.id to p.id = lwhom.whom.
The counts will still be affected by the JOINs, however. Supposing that you have an ID column in the likes table, though, you could then have each COUNT tally the distinct Like IDs per person – if not, consider just using COUNT(DISTINCT correlation.*) instead.
Digressions aside, the following should hopefully work:
SELECT p.id, name,
count(distinct lwho.id) delivered_likes,
count(distinct lwhom.id) received_likes,
count(distinct lmut.id) mutual_likes
FROM people AS p
LEFT JOIN likes AS lwho ON p.id = lwho.who
LEFT JOIN likes AS lwhom ON p.id = lwhom.whom
LEFT JOIN likes AS lmut ON lwhom.who = lmut.whom AND lwhom.whom = lmut.who
GROUP BY p.id,p.name;
I have an SQL Fiddle here.