Re: keeping last 30 entries of a log table

> I need to write a function which inserts a log entry in a log table and
> only
> keeps the last 30 records. I was thinking of using a subquery similar to
> the
> following:
>
> insert into log (account_id, message) values (1, 'this is a test);
> delete from log where account_id = 1 and id not in ( select id from log
> where account_id = 1 order by timestamp desc limit 30);
>
> I'm wondering if there is a more performance oriented method of doing the
> delete that I'm not thinking of.
>

Depending on whether id is a kind of auto-incremented column that never cycles, I would suggest something like:

DELETE FROM log
WHERE account_id = 1
AND id < (
SELECT MIN(id)
FROM log
WHERE account_id = 1
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 30);

I think there will be a performance difference with your method when the number of records to be deleted is huge.

--
Daniel