MySQL Update query with left join and group by

I am trying to create an update query and making little progress in getting the right syntax. The following query is working:

SELECT t.Index1, t.Index2, COUNT( m.EventType ) 
    FROM Table t
    LEFT JOIN MEvents m ON
        (m.Index1 = t.Index1 AND
         m.Index2 = t.Index2 AND
        (m.EventType =  'A' OR m.EventType =  'B')
    ) 
    WHERE (t.SpecialEventCount IS NULL)
    GROUP BY t.Index1, t.Index2

It creates a list of triplets Index1,Index2,EventCounts. It only does this for case where t.SpecialEventCount is NULL. The update query I am trying to write should set this SpecialEventCount to that count, i.e. COUNT(m.EventType) in the query above. This number could be 0 or any positive number (hence the left join). Index1 and Index2 together are unique in Table t and they are used to identify events in MEvent.

How do I have to modify the select query to become an update query? I.e. something like

UPDATE Table SET SpecialEventCount=COUNT(m.EventType).....

but I am confused what to put where and have failed with numerous different guesses.

Solution 1:

I take it that (Index1, Index2) is a unique key on Table, otherwise I would expect the reference to t.SpecialEventCount to result in an error.

Edited query to use subquery as it didn't work using GROUP BY

UPDATE
    Table AS t
    LEFT JOIN (
        SELECT
            Index1,
            Index2,
            COUNT(EventType) AS NumEvents
        FROM
            MEvents
        WHERE
            EventType = 'A' OR EventType = 'B'
        GROUP BY
            Index1,
            Index2
    ) AS m ON
        m.Index1 = t.Index1 AND
        m.Index2 = t.Index2
SET
    t.SpecialEventCount = m.NumEvents
WHERE
    t.SpecialEventCount IS NULL

Solution 2:

Doing a left join with a subquery will generate a giant temporary table in-memory that will have no indexes.

For updates, try avoiding joins and using correlated subqueries instead:

UPDATE
    Table AS t
SET
    t.SpecialEventCount = (
        SELECT COUNT(m.EventType)
        FROM MEvents m
        WHERE m.EventType in ('A','B')
          AND m.Index1 = t.Index1
          AND m.Index2 = t.Index2
    )
WHERE
    t.SpecialEventCount IS NULL

Do some profiling, but this can be significantly faster in some cases.