mySQL - SELECT using JOIN, or a nested SELECT (sub-select)?

Question

I am trying to write a SELECT in mySQL (and PHP) that will retrieve all the rows in "Images" table that were not ranked yet by a certain user.

Those are my tables:

Table: Images

+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+
| Index     | Rank_Good| Rank_OK   | Rank_Bad |
+-----------+----------+-----------+-----------
| 201       | 2        | 9         | 28       |
| 202       | 11       | 20        | 39       |
| 203       | 36       | 14        | 7        |
+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+

Table2: WhoAlreadyClickedImg (has no index)

+------------+-----------------+-----------+
| ImageIndex | UserWhoRankedIt | RankGiven |
+------------+-----------------+-----------+
| 202        | 87              | OK        |
+------------+-----------------+-----------+
| 202        | 93              | Bad       |
+------------+-----------------+-----------+
| 204        | 93              | Good      |
+------------+-----------------+-----------+
| 203        | 94              | Bad       |
+------------+-----------------+-----------+

Every time a user rank an image, the table "Images" is updated and a row is added to "WhoAlreadyClickedImg" table. (this table has no index)

for example, if the user ranked image index 202 with "ok", then the col "Rank_OK" will be updated to (+1) and then, a new row will be added to the "WhoAlreadyClickedImg" table:

ImageIndex: 201 | UserWhoRankedIt: (the used session id) | RankGiven: OK

i want to build a select that will not show the same image twice to a user who already ranked it.

for example, if I'm user "93", the only image that the select will bring is "203"

UPDATED:

This is the query i'm using (by @eamonn):

SELECT * FROM Images WHERE Index NOT IN (SELECT ImageIndex FROM WhoAlreadyClickedImg WHERE UserWhoRankedIt = 93);

but I get an error:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'Index NOT IN (SELECT ImageIndex FROM WhoAlreadyClickedImg WHERE UserWhoRankedIt' at line 1

I checked my system:

• Storage Engine: InnoDB

• MySQL db version: 5.5.33-29.3

• both tables now have Index, int(11), defined as PRIMARY, auto_increment

maybe someone has an idea?

Answer 1

There, this should work:

SELECT Images.Index 
       FROM Images 
       WHERE Images.Index NOT IN 
             (
                SELECT WhoAlreadyClickedImg.ImageIndex 
                     FROM WhoAlreadyClickedImg 
                     WHERE WhoAlreadyClickedImg.UserWhoRankedIt = 93
             );

Remember to add the names of the tables before the name of the column.