Question

What I would like to do is retrieve all data from a table, and order them by the number of games the user played in a specific category. Is there any way I can use some sort of “COUNT WHERE” sql statement?

here’s what i have so far. it will only return the user if they have played a game in the “fps” category, but I want it to show all users in descending order even if they have not played an fps game. please excuse my crappy tables

SELECT user_data.user, COUNT(played_games.game_cat) as 'count'
FROM user_data, played_games
WHERE user_data.user_id = played_games.user_id and played_games.game_cat = 'fps'
GROUP BY user_data.user_id
ORDER BY 'count' DESC;

user_data table

user_id | user

1       | jeff
2       | herb
3       | dug

played_games table

id | user_id | game | game_cat

1  |    2    | kill | fps
2  |    1    | shoot| fps
3  |    2    | COD  | fps
4  |    3    | dogs | cas

Answer 1

This is how I’d do it. No subquery, no COALESCE, no COUNTIF junk.

SELECT `users`.`user`, COUNT(`played_games`.id) AS `c`
FROM `users`
LEFT OUTER JOIN `played_games` ON
`users`.`user_id` = `played_games`.`user_id`
AND `played_games`.`game_cat` = "fps"
GROUP BY `users`.`user_id`
ORDER BY `c` DESC, `user` ASC

SQLFiddle (not sure if you can link them like this…)