Question

I have two tables. One named status like this…

user_id |  status
--------+-----------
      1 |  random status from user 1
      2 |  random status from user 2
      3 |  random message from user 3
      4 |  staus from user 4 
      1 |  second status for user1

etc…
and another named users_following like this…

user_id |  is_following
--------+-----------
      1 |  2
      1 |  3
      2 |  1
      3 |  2

meaning that user 1 is following both users 2 and 3 etc…

So, let’s say I chose user 1. What is the best query (performance wise) to show the status updates of users that user 1 is following, in this case users 2 and 3

currently I have something like

SELECT * from status WHERE user_id IN(SELECT is_following FROM users_following 
WHERE user_id='1') LIMIT 0,5 

but I don’t think this is good for performance if a user was following thousands+ of users

Answer 1

1. You forgot ORDER BY date_posted DESC (or status_id)

2. INNER JOIN would be better here

       SELECT s.*
         FROM status s
   INNER JOIN users_following f ON f.is_following = s.user_id
                               AND f.user_id = 1
     ORDER BY s.status_id DESC
        LIMIT 0, 5 
   

Notes
1. There is no single quotes around integer 1
2. You should create composite index user_id + is_following