I searched around and found a near example to what I'm looking for, but it doesn't work in my case.
I have a query that does an INNER JOIN on two tables and this join constrains my overall data set substantially. I then want to LEFT JOIN onto a third table but I only want one record from that third table. The reason for the left join is because not every result of the INNER JOIN has a match in the 3rd table. Something like this:
SELECT DISTINCT t1.code, t2.id, t2.code, t3.id, t3.source_title, t3.display_order
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 t2 ON t2.code=t1.code AND t2.type=0
LEFT JOIN table3 t3 ON t3.code=t1.code
ORDER BY t1.code, t3.display_order
This query returns too many records because the third table contains multiple records with a matching code. I just want the first one that matches with the lowest display_order value and, unfortunately, I can't limit the records to have display_order=1 because the lowest display order is not always one.
IMPORTANT: The t3.id value (if any) returned by this query must correspond to the record with the lowest display_order value. I.e., it won't work if the query correctly returns the lowest display_order value but the t3.id value corresponds to some other record in table 3.
Is this even possible? Any help would be much appreciated.
EDIT: Per Nick's suggestion, I have tried this, which appears to be working. I'll do some verification and report back:
SELECT DISTINCT t1.code, t2.*, sq.id, sq.source_title, sq.display_order
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 p ON t2.code=t1.code AND t2.type=0
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT t3.*
FROM table3 t3
WHERE t3.display_order=(
SELECT MIN(display_order)
FROM table3 t3a
WHERE t3a.code = t3.code
)
) sq ON sq.code=t1.code
ORDER BY t1.code, sq.display_order
You should be able to replace table3 in your LEFT JOIN with
(SELECT *
FROM table3 t3
WHERE display_order = (SELECT MIN(display_order)
FROM table3 t3a
WHERE t3a.code = t3.code)
) t3
In MySQL 8.0 you can try to use row_number() for each code and ordered by display_order in a subquery from table3. Then left join that result and check for the row_number() to be equal to 1.
SELECT DISTINCT
t1.code,
t2.id,
t2.code,
t3.id,
t3.source_title,
t3.display_order
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 t2
ON t2.code = t1.code
LEFT JOIN (SELECT t3.id,
t3.source_title,
t3.display_order,
t3.code,
row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY t3.code
ORDER BY t3.display_order) rn
FROM table3 t3) t3
ON t3.code = t1.code
WHERE t2.type = 0
AND t3.rn = 1
ORDER BY t1.code,
t3.display_order;
In lower versions you can try correlated subqueries ordered by display_order and LIMIT 1 (to get only one record).
SELECT DISTINCT
t1.code,
t2.id,
t2.code,
(SELECT t3.id
FROM table3 t3
WHERE t3.code = t1.code
ORDER BY t3.display_order,
t3.id
LIMIT 1) id,
(SELECT t3.source_title
FROM table3 t3
WHERE t3.code = t1.code
ORDER BY t3.display_order,
t3.id
LIMIT 1) source_title,
(SELECT t3.display_order
FROM table3 t3
WHERE t3.code = t1.code
ORDER BY t3.display_order,
t3.id
LIMIT 1) display_order
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 t2
ON t2.code = t1.code
WHERE t2.type = 0
ORDER BY t1.code,
(SELECT t3.display_order
FROM table3 t3
WHERE t3.code = t1.code
ORDER BY t3.display_order,
t3.id
LIMIT 1);
I assumed, that display_order in table3 isn't unique but id is. So I added id to the ORDER BY clauses in the subqueries to make sure the same record is selected in each of them. If display_order is unique, you can remove id FROM the ORDER BY clauses.
Edit:
If you don't want to repeat the subqueries in the (overall) ORDER BY clause, you can also order by the column ordinals. E.g.:
...
ORDER BY 1, 6;
I have two tables table1 and table2. table1 has columns id and table2_id while table2 has id and category. I need to count rows from table1 based on two separate values in table2.category containing value Regular or Special.
I have done this in two queries but I want to know if it is possible in a single sql. My queries are:
"SELECT COUNT(t1.id) AS regular FROM table1 t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.t2_id = t2.id WHERE t2.category = 'Regular'";
"SELECT COUNT(t1.id) AS special FROM table1 t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.t2_id = pr.id WHERE t2.category = 'Special'";
Thanks.
EDIT
The second query JOIN should read ON t1.t2_id = t2.id and not ON t1.t2_id = pr.id. Sorry for the confusion that may have caused. Please update/edit your answers/comments accordingly.
Move the Where condition to CASE statement and do the counting
Here is one way using Conditional Aggregate
SELECT
COUNT(case when t2.category = 'Regular' then t1.id end) AS Regular,
COUNT(case when t2.category = 'Special' then t1.id end) AS special
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.t2_id = pr.id
Where t2.category IN ('Regular','Special' )
Note : I have changed the LEFT JOIN to INNER JOIN because you want to count only when table2.category is 'Regular' or 'Special' so no use of LEFT JOIN here
Instead of
"SELECT COUNT(t1.id) AS regular FROM table1 t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.t2_id = t2.id WHERE t2.category = 'Regular'";
"SELECT COUNT(t1.id) AS special FROM table1 t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.t2_id = pr.id WHERE t2.category = 'Special'";
you can do this:
select t2.category, count(t1.id)
from table1 t1
left outer join table2
on t1.t2_id = t2.id
group by t2.category
having t2.category in ('Regular', 'Special')
The suggested query groups the joined records, filters the groups and selects the category name and its count.
$query = "SELECT * FROM table3 WHERE name_id = '(SELECT name_id FROM table2
WHERE salary < 1000 && name = '(SELECT name FROM table1
WHERE savings > 1000)')'";
Basically I want to get the data from the table1 based on the savings and use it to get the data from table 2 and use that data to get all the information from table 3. But this wont work. Is my code right or am I doing something wrong?
I also cannot create new tables, I simply want to display the data from table 3.
Use join
SELECT * FROM table3 t3 join table2 t2
on t3.name_id=t2.name_id
join table1 t1
on t3.name=t1.name
where salary < 1000 and savings > 1000
$query="SELECT * FROM table3 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table3.name_id=table2.name_id
LEFT JOIN table1 ON table3.name=table1.name
WHERE table2.salary < 1000 AND table1.savings > 1000 "
Another syntax of join is
SELECT * FROM table1 t1,table2 t2 ,table3 t3
where t1.name = t3.name and
t2.name_id = t3.name_id and
t1.savings > 1000 and t2.salary < 1000;
$query = "SELECT t3.* FROM table3 t3
INNER JOIN table2 t2 ON t2.name_id = t3.name_id AND t2.salary < 1000
INNER JOIN table1 t1 ON t1.name = t2.name AND t1.savings > 1000";
I want to do a full outer join in MySQL. Is this possible? Is a full outer join supported by MySQL?
You don't have full joins in MySQL, but you can sure emulate them.
For a code sample transcribed from this Stack Overflow question you have:
With two tables t1, t2:
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
UNION
SELECT * FROM t1
RIGHT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
The query above works for special cases where a full outer join operation would not produce any duplicate rows. The query above depends on the UNION set operator to remove duplicate rows introduced by the query pattern. We can avoid introducing duplicate rows by using an anti-join pattern for the second query, and then use a UNION ALL set operator to combine the two sets. In the more general case, where a full outer join would return duplicate rows, we can do this:
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM t1
RIGHT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE t1.id IS NULL
The answer that Pablo Santa Cruz gave is correct; however, in case anybody stumbled on this page and wants more clarification, here is a detailed breakdown.
Example Tables
Suppose we have the following tables:
-- t1
id name
1 Tim
2 Marta
-- t2
id name
1 Tim
3 Katarina
Inner Joins
An inner join, like this:
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
INNER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`;
Would get us only records that appear in both tables, like this:
1 Tim 1 Tim
Inner joins don't have a direction (like left or right) because they are explicitly bidirectional - we require a match on both sides.
Outer Joins
Outer joins, on the other hand, are for finding records that may not have a match in the other table. As such, you have to specify which side of the join is allowed to have a missing record.
LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN are shorthand for LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN; I will use their full names below to reinforce the concept of outer joins vs inner joins.
Left Outer Join
A left outer join, like this:
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
LEFT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`;
...would get us all the records from the left table regardless of whether or not they have a match in the right table, like this:
1 Tim 1 Tim
2 Marta NULL NULL
Right Outer Join
A right outer join, like this:
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
RIGHT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`;
...would get us all the records from the right table regardless of whether or not they have a match in the left table, like this:
1 Tim 1 Tim
NULL NULL 3 Katarina
Full Outer Join
A full outer join would give us all records from both tables, whether or not they have a match in the other table, with NULLs on both sides where there is no match. The result would look like this:
1 Tim 1 Tim
2 Marta NULL NULL
NULL NULL 3 Katarina
However, as Pablo Santa Cruz pointed out, MySQL doesn't support this. We can emulate it by doing a UNION of a left join and a right join, like this:
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
LEFT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`
UNION
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
RIGHT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`;
You can think of a UNION as meaning "run both of these queries, then stack the results on top of each other"; some of the rows will come from the first query and some from the second.
It should be noted that a UNION in MySQL will eliminate exact duplicates: Tim would appear in both of the queries here, but the result of the UNION only lists him once. My database guru colleague feels that this behavior should not be relied upon. So to be more explicit about it, we could add a WHERE clause to the second query:
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
LEFT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`
UNION
SELECT *
FROM `t1`
RIGHT OUTER JOIN `t2` ON `t1`.`id` = `t2`.`id`
WHERE `t1`.`id` IS NULL;
On the other hand, if you wanted to see duplicates for some reason, you could use UNION ALL.
Using a union query will remove duplicates, and this is different than the behavior of full outer join that never removes any duplicates:
[Table: t1] [Table: t2]
value value
----------- -------
1 1
2 2
4 2
4 5
This is the expected result of a full outer join:
value | value
------+-------
1 | 1
2 | 2
2 | 2
Null | 5
4 | Null
4 | Null
This is the result of using left and right join with union:
value | value
------+-------
Null | 5
1 | 1
2 | 2
4 | Null
SQL Fiddle
My suggested query is:
select
t1.value, t2.value
from t1
left outer join t2
on t1.value = t2.value
union all -- Using `union all` instead of `union`
select
t1.value, t2.value
from t2
left outer join t1
on t1.value = t2.value
where
t1.value IS NULL
The result of the above query that is as the same as the expected result:
value | value
------+-------
1 | 1
2 | 2
2 | 2
4 | NULL
4 | NULL
NULL | 5
SQL Fiddle
#Steve Chambers: [From comments, with many thanks!]
Note: This may be the best solution, both for efficiency and for generating the same results as a FULL OUTER JOIN. This blog post also explains it well - to quote from Method 2: "This handles duplicate rows correctly and doesn’t include anything it shouldn’t. It’s necessary to use UNION ALL instead of plain UNION, which would eliminate the duplicates I want to keep. This may be significantly more efficient on large result sets, since there’s no need to sort and remove duplicates."
I decided to add another solution that comes from full outer join visualization and math. It is not better than the above, but it is more readable:
Full outer join means (t1 ∪ t2): all in t1 or in t2
(t1 ∪ t2) = (t1 ∩ t2) + t1_only + t2_only: all in both t1 and t2 plus all in t1 that aren't in t2 and plus all in t2 that aren't in t1:
-- (t1 ∩ t2): all in both t1 and t2
select t1.value, t2.value
from t1 join t2 on t1.value = t2.value
union all -- And plus
-- all in t1 that not exists in t2
select t1.value, null
from t1
where not exists( select 1 from t2 where t2.value = t1.value)
union all -- and plus
-- all in t2 that not exists in t1
select null, t2.value
from t2
where not exists( select 1 from t1 where t2.value = t1.value)
SQL Fiddle
None of the previous answers are actually correct, because they do not follow the semantics when there are duplicated values.
For a query such as (from this duplicate):
SELECT * FROM t1 FULL OUTER JOIN t2 ON t1.Name = t2.Name;
The correct equivalent is:
SELECT t1.*, t2.*
FROM (SELECT name FROM t1 UNION -- This is intentionally UNION to remove duplicates
SELECT name FROM t2
) n LEFT JOIN
t1
ON t1.name = n.name LEFT JOIN
t2
ON t2.name = n.name;
If you need this to work with NULL values (which may also be necessary), then use the NULL-safe comparison operator, <=> rather than =.
MySQL does not have FULL-OUTER-JOIN syntax. You have to emulate it by doing both LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN as follows:
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
UNION
SELECT * FROM t1
RIGHT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
But MySQL also does not have a RIGHT JOIN syntax. According to MySQL's outer join simplification, the right join is converted to the equivalent left join by switching the t1 and t2 in the FROM and ON clause in the query. Thus, the MySQL query optimizer translates the original query into the following -
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
UNION
SELECT * FROM t2
LEFT JOIN t1 ON t2.id = t1.id
Now, there is no harm in writing the original query as is, but say if you have predicates like the WHERE clause, which is a before-join predicate or an AND predicate on the ON clause, which is a during-join predicate, then you might want to take a look at the devil; which is in details.
The MySQL query optimizer routinely checks the predicates if they are null-rejected.
Now, if you have done the RIGHT JOIN, but with WHERE predicate on the column from t1, then you might be at a risk of running into a null-rejected scenario.
For example, the query
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE t1.col1 = 'someValue'
UNION
SELECT * FROM t1
RIGHT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE t1.col1 = 'someValue'
gets translated to the following by the query optimizer:
SELECT * FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE t1.col1 = 'someValue'
UNION
SELECT * FROM t2
LEFT JOIN t1 ON t2.id = t1.id
WHERE t1.col1 = 'someValue'
So the order of tables has changed, but the predicate is still applied to t1, but t1 is now in the 'ON' clause. If t1.col1 is defined as NOT NULL
column, then this query will be null-rejected.
Any outer-join (left, right, full) that is null-rejected is converted to an inner-join by MySQL.
Thus the results you might be expecting might be completely different from what the MySQL is returning. You might think its a bug with MySQL's RIGHT JOIN, but that’s not right. Its just how the MySQL query optimizer works. So the developer in charge has to pay attention to these nuances when he/she is constructing the query.
I modified shA.t's query for more clarity:
-- t1 left join t2
SELECT t1.value, t2.value
FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.value = t2.value
UNION ALL -- include duplicates
-- t1 right exclude join t2 (records found only in t2)
SELECT t1.value, t2.value
FROM t1 RIGHT JOIN t2 ON t1.value = t2.value
WHERE t1.value IS NULL
In SQLite you should do this:
SELECT *
FROM leftTable lt
LEFT JOIN rightTable rt ON lt.id = rt.lrid
UNION
SELECT lt.*, rl.* -- To match column set
FROM rightTable rt
LEFT JOIN leftTable lt ON lt.id = rt.lrid
You can do the following:
(SELECT
*
FROM
table1 t1
LEFT JOIN
table2 t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE
t2.id IS NULL)
UNION ALL
(SELECT
*
FROM
table1 t1
RIGHT JOIN
table2 t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE
t1.id IS NULL);
You can just convert a full outer join, e.g.
SELECT fields
FROM firsttable
FULL OUTER JOIN secondtable ON joincondition
into:
SELECT fields
FROM firsttable
LEFT JOIN secondtable ON joincondition
UNION ALL
SELECT fields (replacing any fields from firsttable with NULL)
FROM secondtable
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM firsttable WHERE joincondition)
Or if you have at least one column, say foo, in firsttable that is NOT NULL, you can do:
SELECT fields
FROM firsttable
LEFT JOIN secondtable ON joincondition
UNION ALL
SELECT fields
FROM firsttable
RIGHT JOIN secondtable ON joincondition
WHERE firsttable.foo IS NULL
SELECT
a.name,
b.title
FROM
author AS a
LEFT JOIN
book AS b
ON a.id = b.author_id
UNION
SELECT
a.name,
b.title
FROM
author AS a
RIGHT JOIN
book AS b
ON a.id = b.author_id
I fix the response, and works include all rows (based on the response of Pavle Lekic):
(
SELECT a.* FROM tablea a
LEFT JOIN tableb b ON a.`key` = b.key
WHERE b.`key` is null
)
UNION ALL
(
SELECT a.* FROM tablea a
LEFT JOIN tableb b ON a.`key` = b.key
where a.`key` = b.`key`
)
UNION ALL
(
SELECT b.* FROM tablea a
right JOIN tableb b ON b.`key` = a.key
WHERE a.`key` is null
);
Use:
SELECT * FROM t1 FULL OUTER JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id;
It can be recreated as follows:
SELECT t1.*, t2.*
FROM (SELECT * FROM t1 UNION SELECT name FROM t2) tmp
LEFT JOIN t1 ON t1.id = tmp.id
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t2.id = tmp.id;
Using a UNION or UNION ALL answer does not cover the edge case where the base tables have duplicated entries.
Explanation:
There is an edge case that a UNION or UNION ALL cannot cover. We cannot test this on MySQL as it doesn't support full outer joins, but we can illustrate this on a database that does support it:
WITH cte_t1 AS
(
SELECT 1 AS id1
UNION ALL SELECT 2
UNION ALL SELECT 5
UNION ALL SELECT 6
UNION ALL SELECT 6
),
cte_t2 AS
(
SELECT 3 AS id2
UNION ALL SELECT 4
UNION ALL SELECT 5
UNION ALL SELECT 6
UNION ALL SELECT 6
)
SELECT * FROM cte_t1 t1 FULL OUTER JOIN cte_t2 t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2;
This gives us this answer:
id1 id2
1 NULL
2 NULL
NULL 3
NULL 4
5 5
6 6
6 6
6 6
6 6
The UNION solution:
SELECT * FROM cte_t1 t1 LEFT OUTER JOIN cte_t2 t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2
UNION
SELECT * FROM cte_t1 t1 RIGHT OUTER JOIN cte_t2 t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2
Gives an incorrect answer:
id1 id2
NULL 3
NULL 4
1 NULL
2 NULL
5 5
6 6
The UNION ALL solution:
SELECT * FROM cte_t1 t1 LEFT OUTER join cte_t2 t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM cte_t1 t1 RIGHT OUTER JOIN cte_t2 t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2
Is also incorrect.
id1 id2
1 NULL
2 NULL
5 5
6 6
6 6
6 6
6 6
NULL 3
NULL 4
5 5
6 6
6 6
6 6
6 6
Whereas this query:
SELECT t1.*, t2.*
FROM (SELECT * FROM t1 UNION SELECT name FROM t2) tmp
LEFT JOIN t1 ON t1.id = tmp.id
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t2.id = tmp.id;
Gives the following:
id1 id2
1 NULL
2 NULL
NULL 3
NULL 4
5 5
6 6
6 6
6 6
6 6
The order is different, but otherwise matches the correct answer.
Use a cross join solution:
SELECT t1.*, t2.*
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN table2 t2
ON 1=1;
It is also possible, but you have to mention the same field names in select.
SELECT t1.name, t2.name FROM t1
LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
UNION
SELECT t1.name, t2.name FROM t2
LEFT JOIN t1 ON t1.id = t2.id
The SQL standard says full join on is inner join on rows union all unmatched left table rows extended by nulls union all right table rows extended by nulls. Ie inner join on rows union all rows in left join on but not inner join on union all rows in right join on but not inner join on.
Ie left join on rows union all right join on rows not in inner join on. Or if you know your inner join on result can't have null in a particular right table column then "right join on rows not in inner join on" are rows in right join on with the on condition extended by and that column is null.
Ie similarly right join on union all appropriate left join on rows.
From What is the difference between “INNER JOIN” and “OUTER JOIN”?:
(SQL Standard 2006 SQL/Foundation 7.7 Syntax Rules 1, General Rules 1 b, 3 c & d, 5 b.)
Notice that I'm calling and joining the same tables for my main query and subquery.
Now my actually query is using many more subqueries like that.
Is there a way to call a subquery field from the main query thus eliminating the need to reuse the same join tables in the subqueries? I want to make it more efficient without sacrificing speed.
SELECT tb1.id, tb1.title,
(SELECT tb1.title
FROM table1 AS tb1
JOIN table2 AS tb2 ON tb2.id = tb1.id
LEFT JOIN table3 AS tb3 ON tb2.id = tb3.id
WHERE tb1.id > '123' LIMIT 1) AS next
FROM table1 AS tb1
JOIN table2 AS tb2 ON tb2.id = tb1.id
LEFT JOIN table3 AS tb3 ON tb2.id = tb3.id
WHERE tb1.id='123'
You can use a View to abstract that query.
CREATE VIEW tbl_view AS
SELECT
tb1.id as id,
tb1.title as title
FROM table1 AS tb1
JOIN table2 AS tb2 ON tb2.id = tb1.id
LEFT JOIN table3 AS tb3 ON tb2.id = tb3.id
The shorter query would be
SELECT
id,
title,
(SELECT title FROM tbl_view
WHERE id > '123' LIMIT 1) AS next
FROM
tbl_view
WHERE id='123'