Joining two MySQL tables, but with additional conditions? - mysql

Question

I have two tables:
Products:
+-------------------------------------------------+
| id | name | category | price |
+-------------------------------------- ----------+
| 1 | item1 | 1 | 0.99 |
| 2 | item2 | 2 | 1.99 |
| 3 | item3 | 3 | 2.95 |
| 4 | item4 | 4 | 2.50 |
+-------------------------------------------------+
Images:
+--------------------------------------------------+
| id | file_name | p_id | priority |
+-------------------------------------- -----------+
| 1 | image1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | image2 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | image3 | 2 | 2 |
| 4 | image4 | 3 | 2 |
| 5 | image5 | 3 | 3 |
| 11 | image6 | 3 | 5 |
| 16 | image7 | 4 | 1 |
| 19 | image8 | 4 | 7 |
+--------------------------------------------------+
I need to get all of product information, as well as the file name of an image for the product. Notice that a product can have more than one image; I want the one with the lowest priority. Also, I only want results for products that are in a certain category.
So, say I need information for products in categories {1,2,3}, then after the query runs the result should return:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| id | name | category | price | file_name |
+-------------------------------------- ----------+---------------+
| 1 | item1 | 1 | 0.99 | image1 |
| 2 | item2 | 2 | 1.99 | image3 |
| 3 | item3 | 3 | 2.95 | image4 |
+-------------------------------------------------+---------------+
I have tried writing a couple of different join statements, but none of them work; not surprising, since I'm a total novice when it comes to SQL.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I will add a step by step tutorial, first getting the join right,
then adding some conditions to filter the category and finally, grouping
and using the having clause with a sub-select. You will need to use the last select
in your code. I also tested this on a mysql instance and it works.
I'm using group by in case you need some other complex stuff. It's good to have an example.
The syntax is ansii sql, it should work on all databases not just mysql
-- get everything by joining
select p.*, i.file_name
from products p
join image i on (p.id = i.p_id)
/* get everything by joining
* + filter by category
*/
select p.*, i.file_name
from products p
join image i on (p.id = i.p_id)
where p.category in (1,2,3)
/* get everything by joining
* + filter by category
* + image is the one with the lowest priority
* note: selecting the priority is not necessary
* but it's good for demonstration purposes
*/
select p.*, i.file_name, i.priority
from products p
join image i on (p.id = i.p_id)
where p.category in (1,2,3)
group by p.id
having i.priority = (select min(priority) from image where p_id = p.id)

Answer 2

This is the answer:
select a.id, a.name, a.category, a.price, b.filename as file_name
from products a left join (
select i.p_id, i.filename from (select id, min(priority) as min_p
from images group by p_id) q
left join images i on q.id = i.id
) b on a.id = b.p_id
where a.category in (1, 2, 3);
EXPLANATION:
First, you need to get a set where for each products with lowest priority, which is from this query:
select id, min(priority) as min_p from images group by p_id;
The result will be:
+----+----------+
| id | lowest_p |
+----+----------+
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 2 |
| 4 | 1 |
+----+----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
The next step will be to get an outer join, in this case I'd choose (arbitrarily according to my preference), the left join:
select i.p_id, i.filename from (select id, min(priority) as min_p
from images group by p_id) q left join images i on q.id = i.id;
This query produce what you want in short:
+------+----------+
| p_id | filename |
+------+----------+
| 1 | image1 |
| 2 | image3 |
| 3 | image4 |
| 4 | image7 |
+------+----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Now you just need to decorate this, again using left join:
select a.id, a.name, a.category, a.price, b.filename as file_name
from products a left join (
select i.p_id, i.filename from (select id, min(priority) as min_p
from images group by p_id) q
left join images i on q.id = i.id
) b on a.id = b.p_id
where a.category in (1, 2, 3);
And you'll get what you want:
+------+-------+----------+-------+-----------+
| id | name | category | price | file_name |
+------+-------+----------+-------+-----------+
| 1 | item1 | 1 | 0.99 | image1 |
| 2 | item2 | 2 | 1.99 | image3 |
| 3 | item3 | 3 | 2.95 | image4 |
+------+-------+----------+-------+-----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
You can also put the products in the right hand side of the left join, depending on what you expected when there is product without images available. The query above will display the view as above, with the file_name field as "null".
On the other hand, it will not display any if you put products on the right hand side of hte left join.

Answer 3

Building on sarwar026's answer...
SELECT p.id, name, priority, price, file_name
FROM Products p, Images i
WHERE p.id = i.p_id
AND i.priority = (SELECT MIN(priority) FROM Images ii WHERE ii.p_id = p.id)
AND p.category IN (1,2,3)
(tested on a mysql database with copies of your tables)