CodeIgniter: Displaying data from two tables in one loop

Let's say I have these two database tables:

blog     comments
-------  ----------
blog_id  comment_id
title    blog_id
content  comment

Now I'd like to run through the 3 latest blog entries and display the title, content and the number of comments made on that entry.

For that, I created a Blog_model:

function get_entries($n)
{
    if ($n < 1) {$n = 1;}

    $this->db->order_by("blog_id", "desc"); 
    $q = $this->db->get('blog', $n);

    if($q->num_rows() > 0) 
    {
        foreach ($q->result() as $row) 
        {
            $data[] = $row;
        }
        return $data;
    }
}

The model is loaded in the controller and passed on to the view:

$this->load->model('Blog_model');
$data['blog_rows'] = $this->Blog_model->get_entries(3);
$this->load->view('blog_view');

That gives me the three latest blog entries. I can now loop through the rows and display the content in the view like this:

<?php foreach ($blog_rows as $row): ?>

<h2><?=$row->title;?></h2>
<a href="#" class="comments">12></a>
<开发者_如何学JAVA;p><?=$row->content;?></p>

<?php endforeach; ?>

So far so good. But now the tricky part:

I'd like to display the number of comments associated with the displayed blog entry. How would I accomplish that, adhering to the CodeIgniter practices?

Here are two proposals for the model method: the first does a query for each blod row, while the second does an unique query wich is faster. the second query is not tested.

Model 1

function get_entries($n)
{
    if ($n < 1) {$n = 1;}

    $this->db->order_by("blog_id", "desc"); 
    $q = $this->db->get('blog', $n);

    if($q->num_rows() > 0) 
    {
        foreach ($q->result() as $row) 
        {
            $data[] = $row;
        }
        return $data;
    }

    foreach($data AS &$blog_e)
    {
       $q = "SELECT COUNT(*) AS count FROM comments WHERE blog_id = ?";
       $query = $this->db->query($q,array($blog_e->blog_id);
       $ncomments = $query->result_array();
       $blog_e->n_comments = $ncomments[0]['count'];
    }
}

Model 2

function get_entries($n)
{
    if ($n < 1) {$n = 1;}

    $q = "SELECT blog.blog_id,title,content,COUNT(comment_id) AS n_comments
          FROM blog JOIN comments ON blog.blog_id = comments.blog_id
          GROUP BY blog.blog_id,title,content
          ORDER BY blog.blog_id DESC
          LIMIT 0,?"

    $query = $this->db->query($q,array($n));

    if($query->num_rows() > 0) 
    {
        foreach ($q->result() as $row) 
        {
            $data[] = $row;
        }
        return $data;
    }
}

View

<?php foreach ($blog_rows as $row): ?>

<h2><?=$row->title;?></h2>
<a href="#" class="comments"><?=$row->n_comments?>></a>
<p><?=$row->content;?></p>

<?php endforeach; ?>