How to select a single record in a left join

Question

I need to select a specific model from the Models table using its key ModelID. I also need to add a blurb of content from the Model_Content table. The Models_Content table, howe

Answer 1

This may be an expansion on Randy's answer, but it's not completely clear to me.

For performance reasons I wanted to minimize the number of SELECT statements in my query, so I used a MIN statement within the primary select instead of within the JOIN:

SELECT 
    table_1.id AS id, 
    table_1.name AS name,
    MIN(table_2.id) AS table_2_id 
FROM table_1
LEFT JOIN table_2 ON table_2.table_1_id = table_1.id
-- additional JOINs and WHERE excluded
GROUP BY table_1.id, table_1.name
LIMIT 5

There may be tradeoffs depending on the total amount of data. IDK. My query needs to tunnel into the data from a condition several steps removed.