Avoid UNION for two almost identical tables in MySQL - mysql

Question

I'm not very good at MySQL and i'm going to write a query to count messages sent by an user, based on its type and is_auto field.
Messages can be of type "small text message" or "newsletter". I created two entities with a few fields that differs between them. The important one is messages_count that is absent in table newsletter and it's used in the query:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `small_text_message` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`messages_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`username` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`method` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`content` longtext,
`sent_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`status` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`recipients_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`customers_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`sheduled_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`sheduled_for` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`is_auto` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
`user_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
And:
CREATE TABLE `newsletter` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`subject` varchar(78) DEFAULT NULL,
`content` longtext,
`sent_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`status` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`recipients_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`customers_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`sheduled_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`sheduled_for` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`is_auto` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
`user_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
I ended up with a UNION query. Can this query be shortened or optimized since the only difference is messages_count that should be always 1 for newsletter?
SELECT
CONCAT('sms_', IF(is_auto = 0, 'user' , 'auto')) AS subtype,
SUM(messages_count * (customers_count + recipients_count)) AS count
FROM small_text_message WHERE status <> 'pending' AND user_id = 1
GROUP BY is_auto
UNION
SELECT
CONCAT('newsletter_', IF(is_auto = 0, 'user' , 'auto')) AS subtype,
SUM(customers_count + recipients_count) AS count
FROM newsletter WHERE status <> 'pending' AND user_id = 1
GROUP BY is_auto

Answer 1

I don't see any easy way to avoid a UNION (or UNION ALL) operation, that will return the specified result set.
I would recommend you use a UNION ALL operator in place of the UNION operator. Then the execution plan will not include the step that eliminates duplicate rows. (You already have GROUP BY operations on each query, and there is no way that those two queries can produce an identical row.)
Otherwise, your query looks fine just as it is written.
(It's always a good thing to consider the question, might there be a better way? To get the result set you are asking for, from the schema you have, your query looks about as good as it's going to get.)

Answer 2

If you are looking for more general DB advice, I recommend restructuring the tables to factor the common elements into one table, perhaps called outbound_communication or something, with all of your common fields, then perhaps have "sub tables" for the specific types to host the fields which are unique to that type. It does mean a simple JOIN is necessary to select all of the fields you want, but the again, it's normalized and actually makes situations like this one easier (one table holds all of the entities of interest). Additionally, you have the option of writing that JOIN just once as a "view", and then your existing code would not even need to change to see the two tables as if they never changed.
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `outbound_communicaton` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`content` longtext,
`sent_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`status` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`recipients_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`customers_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`sheduled_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`sheduled_for` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`is_auto` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
`user_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE `small_text_message` (
`oubound_communication_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`messages_count` int(11) NOT NULL,
`username` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`method` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`outbound_communication_id`),
FOREIGN KEY (outbound_communication_id)
REFERENCES outbound_communicaton(id)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE `newsletter` (
`oubound_communication_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`subject` varchar(78) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`outbound_communication_id`),
FOREIGN KEY (outbound_communication_id)
REFERENCES outbound_communicaton(id)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
Then selecting a text msg is like this:
SELECT *
FROM outbound_communication AS parent
JOIN small_text_message
ON parent.id = small_text_message.outbound_communication_id
WHERE parent.id = 1234;

Answer 3

The nature of the query is inherently the union of the data from the small text message and the newsletter tables, so the UNION query is the only realistic formulation. There's no join of relevance between the two tables, for example.
So, I think you're very much on the right lines with your query.
Why are you worried about a UNION?