Question

I have a MySQL database with a photos table (containing the photos) and a follows table (containing information about users following users).

I have the following code to load photos from the users that the current user is following:

SELECT photos.* FROM photos,follows 
WHERE follows.following = photos.uid AND 
      follows.follower=$current_uid 
ORDER BY photos.id DESC

I want to load a list of both my user’s uploaded photos as well as the ones that user is following. I tried the following, but I keep getting a whole bunch of duplicate entries:

SELECT photos.* 
FROM photos,follows 
WHERE (follows.following = photos.uid AND 
       follows.follower=$current_uid) OR 
       photos.uid=$current_uid
ORDER BY photos.id DESC

Can anyone help with this?

Answer 1

Try this:

SELECT
  photos.*
FROM
  photos
LEFT OUTER JOIN
  follows
ON
  photos.uid = follows.following AND follows.follower = $current_uid
WHERE
  photos.uid = $current_uid
OR
  follows.following IS NOT NULL

Alternatively:

SELECT
  photos.*
FROM
  photos
WHERE
  photos.uid = $current_uid
OR
  photos.uid IN (SELECT following FROM follows WHERE follower = $current_uid)