my query looks like that:
SELECT
count(users.id)
FROM users
LEFT JOIN mail_sender_jobs_actions ON mail_sender_jobs_actions.userID = users.id
LEFT JOIN table2 ON table2.userID = users.id
LEFT JOIN table3 ON table3.userID = users.id
WHERE {$flexibleWhereClause}
Now, the mail_sender_jobs_actions table CAN (doesnt need to return anything) return multiple entries. I dont want to group the results but still limit the returns of mail_sender_jobs_actions to 1 so I dont get duplicates... Otherwise the count wouldnt work properly.
Scraped the whole web and found nothing working for me as I want to keep the where clause flexible. Any solution?
EDIT
so to explain the situation. We have a table with users (users). We have a table with actions (mail_seder_jobs_actions). We have other tables related to that query which are not relevant (table1, table2, table3)
If a user does an action, an entry is being created in the actions table.
The where clause is flexible, meaning it is possible that somebody wants to only show users with a specific action.
It is also possible that an action is not relevant to the user, so this entry gets ignored.
With where criteria you have there is no point using left join, since the where criteria applies to the table on the right hand side, effectively turning the left join into an inner join.
Apparently yo do not use any columns from the right hand side table, so instead of using joins, I would use an exists subquery.
SELECT 1 as count, users.email FROM users WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM mail_sender_jobs_actions WHERE mail_sender_jobs_actions.userID = users.id AND mail_sender_jobs_actions.type = '1' AND mail_sender_jobs_actions.jobID = '106' AND {$flexibleWhereClause})
However, there is little point in having the count() because it will always return 1. If you want to count how many records each user has in the mail_sender_jobs_actions table, then you have to use left join, group by, and move the where criteria into the join condition:
SELECT
count(mail_sender_jobs_actions.userID),
users.email
FROM users
LEFT JOIN mail_sender_jobs_actions ON mail_sender_jobs_actions.userID = users.id
AND mail_sender_jobs_actions.type = '1'
AND mail_sender_jobs_actions.jobID = '106'
AND {$flexibleWhereClause}
GROUP BY users.email