MYSQL selecting users with specific skills

Question

Hi,

I'm muddling my way through by far the most complex SQL query i've ever done, which is probably extremely simple for most of you (:

I have three tables, User, Skills and User_Skills. The fields of which should be fairly self explanatory.

I want to choose people who have one or more skills that meet my criteria.

I can select a user with the skill i'm after, but i'm not sure about the syntax for querying multiple skills.

I'd like to just use one query, so I'm trying to use GROUP_CONCAT

Here's my SQL:

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county, GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(Skill_id AS CHAR))
FROM User LEFT JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id
LEFT JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id = Skills.id GROUP BY User_id

---

User_id  first_name  last_name  county        GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(Skill_id AS CHAR))
1000    Joe      Blow     West Yorkshire  8,6,1,9,7,3,5,10
1001    Fred      Bloggs     COUNTY1          5,8,2,7,9
1003    asdf      asdf1     Some County      10,8,2

How do I limit the search to only people who have skill 5 AND 9 ?

Answer 1

Why can't you just use an INNER JOIN inplace of the LEFT join, and issue a WHERE clause for the required skills?

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county, GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(Skill_id AS CHAR)) 
FROM User 
INNER JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id 
INNER JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id = Skills.id GROUP BY User_id
WHERE skill_id = 5 OR skill_id=9

Answer 2

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county, GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(Skill_id AS CHAR))
FROM User JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id
JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id IN (5,9)
GROUP BY User_id

If you want to prevent multiple skill records, then you may need a subquery

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county,
(
    SELECT (GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(subSkill.Skill_id AS CHAR))
    FROM Skills as subSkill WHERE subSkill.skill_id = User_Skills.skill_id
    GROUP BY subSkill.skill_id
)
FROM User JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id
JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id IN (5,9)
GROUP BY User_id

Answer 3

Here's how (will give you users with skills 5 AND 9):

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county FROM User INNER JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id INNER JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id = Skills.id WHERE Skills.Skill_id = 5 AND Skills.Skill_id = 9 GROUP BY User_id

Answer 4

SELECT  *
FROM    users u
WHERE   EXISTS
        (
        SELECT  NULL
        FROM    user_skills us
        WHERE   us.skill_id IN (5, 9)
                AND us.user_id = u.id
        LIMIT 1, 1
        )

This relies on the fact that (user_id, skill_id) is a PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE key (that is you cannot assign a skill to a user more than once).

Update:

To return all skills (comma separated):

SELECT  u.*,
        (
        SELECT  GROUP_CONCAT(skill_id)
        FROM    user_skills uso
        WHERE   uso.user_ud = u.user_id
        ) AS all_skills
FROM    users u
WHERE   EXISTS
        (
        SELECT  NULL
        FROM    user_skills us
        WHERE   us.skill_id IN (5, 9)
                AND us.user_id = u.id
        LIMIT 1, 1
        )

Answer 5

You just need a

HAVING FIND_IN_SET('5', skills) AND FIND_IN_SET('9', skills)

after the group by (where "skills" is the name of the grouped column). So your query should now look like

SELECT User_id, first_name, last_name, county, GROUP_CONCAT(CAST(Skill_id AS CHAR)) as skills
FROM User LEFT JOIN User_Skills ON User.id = User_Skills.User_id
LEFT JOIN Skills ON User_Skills.Skill_id = Skills.id GROUP BY User_id
HAVING FIND_IN_SET('5', skills) AND FIND_IN_SET('9', skills)