I have two tables. I want to draw a sample of the first table except where the person in the first table is also in a second table. Am having trouble doing this seemingly simple query.
table users
id|name
table catuser
id|userid|catid
I have tried
SELECT u.*,c.userid FROM `users` u
LEFT JOIN `catuser` c
ON (u.id = c.userid AND c.userid <> '197')
WHERE u.id = '1'
and variations to no avail. Would appreciate any suggestions.
How abt. this:
SELECT u.*,c.userid
FROM `users` u
LEFT JOIN `catuser` c
ON u.id = c.userid
WHERE u.id = '1'
AND c.userid <> '197'
AND c.userid is null
SELECT * FROM users WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT userid FROM catuser)
If you want to query only users that have one or more categories, you can use a WHERE EXISTS query:
SELECT u.* FROM `users` u
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM catuser WHERE catuser.userid = u.id)
Another possibility is to do a left join, and check whether the join succeeded on checking on null:
SELECT u.*, c.* FROM `users` u
LEFT JOIN catuser c ON u.id = c.userid
WHERE c.id IS NOT NULL
If there is no corresponding row in catuser, all catuser fields will be null. By checking whether c.id is not null, you only include the rows with a category.
Note that the join may return a user multiple time, if he is in multiple categories.
