MySQL Left Join with conditional

It seems pretty simple i have a table 'question' which stores a list of all questions and a many to many table which sits between 'question' and 'user' called 'question_answer'.

Is it possible to do one query to get back all questions within questions table and the ones a user has answered with the un answered questions being NULL values

question:

| id | question |

question_answer:

| id | question_id | answer | user_id |

I am doing this query, but the condition is enforcing that only the questions answered are returned. Will i need to resort to nested select?

SELECT * FROM `question` LEFT JOIN `question_answer`
ON question_answer.question_id = question.id
WHERE user_id = 14583461 GROUP BY question_id

if user_id is in the outer joined to table then your predicate user_id = 14583461 will result in not returning any rows where user_id is null i.e. the rows with unanswered questions. You need to say "user_id = 14583461 or user_id is null"

Shouldn't you use RIGHT JOIN?

SELECT * FROM question_answer RIGHT JOIN question ON question_answer.question_id = question.id
WHERE user_id = 14583461 GROUP BY question_id

something like this might help (http://pastie.org/1114844)

drop table if exists users;
create table users
(
user_id int unsigned not null auto_increment primary key,
username varchar(32) not null
)engine=innodb;

drop table if exists question;
create table question
(
question_id int unsigned not null auto_increment primary key,
ques varchar(255) not null
)engine=innodb;

drop table if exists question_ans;
create table question_ans
(
user_id int unsigned not null,
question_id int unsigned not null,
ans varchar(255) not null,
primary key (user_id, question_id)
)engine=innodb;

insert into users (username) values 
('user1'),('user2'),('user3'),('user4');

insert into question (ques) values 
('question1 ?'),('question2 ?'),('question3 ?');

insert into question_ans (user_id,question_id,ans) values
(1,1,'foo'), (1,2,'mysql'), (1,3,'php'),
(2,1,'bar'), (2,2,'oracle'),
(3,1,'foobar');

select
 u.*,
 q.*,
 a.ans
from users u
cross join question q
left outer join question_ans a on a.user_id = u.user_id and a.question_id = q.question_id
order by
 u.user_id,
 q.question_id;

select
 u.*,
 q.*,
 a.ans
from users u
cross join question q
left outer join question_ans a on a.user_id = u.user_id and a.question_id = q.question_id
where
 u.user_id = 2
order by
 q.question_id;

edit: added some stats/explain plan & runtime:

runtime: 0.031 (10,000 users, 1000 questions, 3.5 million answers)

select count(*) from users
count(*)
========
10000 

select count(*) from question
count(*)
========
1000 

select count(*) from question_ans
count(*)
========
3682482 

explain
select
 u.*,
 q.*,
 a.ans
from users u
cross join question q
left outer join question_ans a on a.user_id = u.user_id and a.question_id = q.question_id
where 
 u.user_id = 256
order by
 u.user_id,
 q.question_id;


id  select_type table   type    possible_keys   key         key_len ref                         rows    Extra
==  =========== =====   ====    =============   ===         ======= ===                         ====    =====
1   SIMPLE          u   const   PRIMARY         PRIMARY         4   const                       1       Using filesort
1   SIMPLE          q   ALL                                                                     687 
1   SIMPLE          a   eq_ref  PRIMARY         PRIMARY         8   const,foo_db.q.question_id  1   

Move the user_id predicate into the join condition. This will then ensure that all rows from question are returned, but only rows from question_answer with the specified user ID and question ID.

SELECT * FROM question
    LEFT JOIN question_answer ON question_answer.question_id = question.id 
                              AND user_id = 14583461
ORDER BY user_id, question_id