MySQL - SELECT WHERE field IN (subquery) - Extremely slow why?

Question

I\'ve got a couple of duplicates in a database that I want to inspect, so what I did to see which are duplicates, I did this:

SELECT relevant_field
FROM some         


        

Answer 1

I find this to be the most efficient for finding if a value exists, logic can easily be inverted to find if a value doesn't exist (ie IS NULL);

SELECT * FROM primary_table st1
LEFT JOIN comparision_table st2 ON (st1.relevant_field = st2.relevant_field)
WHERE st2.primaryKey IS NOT NULL

*Replace relevant_field with the name of the value that you want to check exists in your table

*Replace primaryKey with the name of the primary key column on the comparison table.