如果从前门进来时有些东西不起作用，那么从后门走：

drop table if exists apples;
create table if not exists apples(variety char(10) primary key, price int);

insert into apples values('fuji', 5), ('gala', 6);

drop table if exists apples_new;
create table if not exists apples_new like apples;
insert into apples_new select * from apples;

update apples_new
    set price = (select price from apples where variety = 'gala')
    where variety = 'fuji';
rename table apples to apples_orig;
rename table apples_new to apples;
drop table apples_orig;

速度很快。数据越大越好。

最简单的方法是在子查询中引用父查询表时使用表别名。

例子：

insert into xxx_tab (trans_id) values ((select max(trans_id)+1 from xxx_tab));

将其更改为：

insert into xxx_tab (trans_id) values ((select max(P.trans_id)+1 from xxx_tab P));

NexusRex提供了一个非常好的解决方案，可以从同一个表中删除带有联接的内容。

如果您这样做：

DELETE FROM story_category
WHERE category_id NOT IN (
        SELECT DISTINCT category.id AS cid FROM category 
        INNER JOIN story_category ON category_id=category.id
)

你会得到一个错误。

但如果您将条件包装为一个以上的选择：

DELETE FROM story_category
WHERE category_id NOT IN (
    SELECT cid FROM (
        SELECT DISTINCT category.id AS cid FROM category 
        INNER JOIN story_category ON category_id=category.id
    ) AS c
)

它会做正确的事情！！

解释：查询优化器对第一个查询进行派生合并优化（这会导致它失败并出现错误），但第二个查询不符合派生合并优化的条件。因此，优化器被迫首先执行子查询。

就问题而言，您希望删除story_category中不存在于类别中的行。

以下是用于标识要删除的行的原始查询：

SELECT * 
FROM  story_category 
WHERE category_id NOT IN (
    SELECT DISTINCT category.id 
    FROM category INNER JOIN 
       story_category ON category_id=category.id
);

将NOT IN与JOIN原始表的子查询组合在一起似乎不太复杂。这可以用不存在和相关子查询以更直接的方式表示：

select sc.*
from story_category sc
where not exists (select 1 from category c where c.id = sc.category_id);

现在很容易将其转换为delete语句：

delete from story_category
where not exists (select 1 from category c where c.id = story_category.category_id);    

这个quer可以在任何MySQL版本上运行，也可以在我知道的大多数其他数据库中运行。

DB Fiddle演示：

-- set-up
create table story_category(category_id int);
create table category (id int);
insert into story_category values (1), (2), (3), (4), (5);
insert into category values (4), (5), (6), (7);

-- your original query to identify offending rows
SELECT * 
FROM  story_category 
WHERE category_id NOT IN (
    SELECT DISTINCT category.id 
    FROM category INNER JOIN 
       story_category ON category_id=category.id);

| category_id |
| ----------: |
|           1 |
|           2 |
|           3 |

-- a functionally-equivalent, simpler query for this
select sc.*
from story_category sc
where not exists (select 1 from category c where c.id = sc.category_id)

| category_id |
| ----------: |
|           1 |
|           2 |
|           3 |

-- the delete query
delete from story_category
where not exists (select 1 from category c where c.id = story_category.category_id);

-- outcome
select * from story_category;

| category_id |
| ----------: |
|           4 |
|           5 |

最近，我不得不更新同一个表中的记录，如下所示：

UPDATE skills AS s, (SELECT id  FROM skills WHERE type = 'Programming') AS p
SET s.type = 'Development' 
WHERE s.id = p.id;

对于OP试图实现的特定查询，理想且最有效的方法是根本不使用子查询。

以下是OP的两个查询的LEFT JOIN版本：

SELECT s.* 
FROM story_category s 
LEFT JOIN category c 
ON c.id=s.category_id 
WHERE c.id IS NULL;

注意：DELETE s将删除操作限制在story_category表中。文档

DELETE s 
FROM story_category s 
LEFT JOIN category c 
ON c.id=s.category_id 
WHERE c.id IS NULL;