How does LEFT JOIN with WHERE clause works?

Given the query below

SELECT * FROM tableA 
    LEFT JOIN tableB ON tableB.id = tableA.id
    WHERE tableA.name = 'e'

.

tableA                        tableB
-----------                   ----------- 
id    name                     id    school
-----------                   -----------  
1     a                         1     AA
2     b                         2     BB                     
3     c                         3     CC                     
4     d                         4     DD                     
5     e                         5     EE

.

What baffles me is the process that is happening behind.

Does the system JOINs first both tableA and tableB before they select only the row from the WHERE clause?

If yes, then what about this query

SELECT * FROM 
(
    SELECT * FROM tableA     
    WHERE name = 'e'

) A LEFT JOIN tableB ON tableB.id = A.id

Does this query select first using the WHERE clause before it JOINs the other table?

Sorry I can't find the answer on the web. I wanted to lessen the MySQL resource bandwidth. Does the second query is the best for this situation?

The query optimizer will decide and it is pretty smart.

SELECT * FROM tableA 
LEFT JOIN tableB 
  ON tableB.id = tableA.id
WHERE tableA.name = 'e'

There are many cases where doing the join first is more efficient. If name is indexed and 'e' is somewhat unique then do that first is more efficient.

This is different

SELECT * FROM tableA 
LEFT JOIN tableB 
  ON tableB.id = tableA.id
WHERE tableB.school = 'EE'

That changes the left join into an inner join but since there is a match in your data you would get the same results.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#165642, answer score: 7