MySql order by clause not working - mysql

Question

In mysql query I use order by, but it is not working.
When I do this
SELECT t.id,t.user_id,t.title,c.comment,d.has_answer,IF(c.id IS NULL, t.date_created, d.recent_date) recent_date,MIN(i.id) image_id
FROM threads t
LEFT JOIN comments c ON c.thread_id = t.id
INNER JOIN (
SELECT thread_id, MAX(date_sent) recent_date, MAX(is_answer) has_answer
FROM comments
GROUP BY thread_id
) d ON c.id IS NULL OR (d.thread_id = c.thread_id AND d.recent_date = c.date_sent)
LEFT JOIN thread_images i ON t.id = i.thread_id
WHERE t.user_id = t.user_id
GROUP BY t.id
ORDER BY d.recent_date DESC
LIMIT 0, 10
It doesn't properly order them. But if I do this:
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT t.id,t.user_id,t.title,c.comment,d.has_answer,IF(c.id IS NULL, t.date_created, d.recent_date) recent_date,MIN(i.id) image_id
FROM threads t
LEFT JOIN comments c ON c.thread_id = t.id
INNER JOIN (
SELECT thread_id, MAX(date_sent) recent_date, MAX(is_answer) has_answer
FROM comments
GROUP BY thread_id
) d ON c.id IS NULL OR (d.thread_id = c.thread_id AND d.recent_date = c.date_sent)
LEFT JOIN thread_images i ON t.id = i.thread_id
WHERE t.user_id = t.user_id
GROUP BY t.id
LIMIT 0, 10) qwerty
ORDER BY recent_date DESC
Then it does work. Why does the top one not work, and is the second way the best way to fix that?
Thanks

Answer 1

Those two statements are ordering by two different things.
The second statement is ordering by the result of an expression in the SELECT list.
But the first statement specifies ordering by a value of recent_date returned by the inline view d; if you remove "d." from in front of recent_date, then the ORDER BY clause would reference the alias assigned to the expression in the SELECT list, as the second statement does.
Because recent_date is an alias for an expression the SELECT list, these two are equivalent:
ORDER BY recent_date
ORDER BY IF(c.id IS NULL, t.date_created, d.recent_date)
^^
but those are significantly different from:
ORDER BY d.recent_date
^^
Note that the non-standard use of the GROUP BY clause may be masking some values of recent_date which are discarded by the query. This usage of the GROUP BY clause is a MySQL extension to the SQL Standard; most other relational databases would throw an error with this statement. It's possible to get MySQL to throw the same type of error by enabling the ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY SQL mode.
Q Is the second statement the best way to fix that?
A If that statement guarantees that the resultset returned meets your specification, then it's a workable approach. (One downside is the overhead of the inline view query.)
But I strongly suspect that the second statement is really just masking the problem, not really fixing it.

Answer 2

SELECT t.id,t.user_id,t.title,c.comment,d.has_answer,IF(c.id IS NULL, t.date_created, d.recent_date) recent_date,MIN(i.id) image_id
FROM (threads t
LEFT JOIN comments c ON c.thread_id = t.id
INNER JOIN (
SELECT thread_id, MAX(date_sent) recent_date, MAX(is_answer) has_answer
FROM comments
GROUP BY thread_id
) d ON c.id IS NULL OR (d.thread_id = c.thread_id AND d.recent_date = c.date_sent)
LEFT JOIN thread_images i ON t.id = i.thread_id
WHERE t.user_id = t.user_id
GROUP BY t.id
LIMIT 0, 10) x
ORDER BY d.recent_date DESC