Should I use Inner Join in this case? - mysql

Question

I am working on a student attendance mini-project, and I don't know how to proceed for my database. I'm new to SQL and databases in general so this might seem dumb to you.
So, I want to do a database containing the table student, which contains : student_id (primary key) , name (string) and attendance(boolean) (that's the bare minimum, i'll add more afterwards) and I want to register the daily attendance of the students. So I want to have all the students tied to every date of the week.
I created a date table in phpMyadmin but I don't know how to proceed to link them, i've tried an Inner Join and it was successful.
The problem is : If i want to add another line to the student table my table won't update, so is there a way to "automatically" tie all the students to the date table ?
Sorry if this seems confused I've tried my best to summarize it !

Answer 1

Lets have some idea about tables should be there to implement a proper Student Attendance system in place. I have copied create script for some of my tables that used for maintaining Students record per course. I hope following sample Table scripts with relation will help you understanding regarding table structure and also to solve your issue.
Please be noted, That this table structures for your your reference only. You can add/remove tables/columns as per your requirement once you get an overall idea from this post.
CREATE TABLE `staff` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`type` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`first_name` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`last_name` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`emal` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`contact` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
CREATE TABLE `batch` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`department` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`details` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`staff_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `batch_staff_idx` (`staff_id`),
CONSTRAINT `batch_staff` FOREIGN KEY (`staff_id`) REFERENCES `staff` (`id`) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
CREATE TABLE `student` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`batch_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`first_name` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`last_name` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`email` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`contact` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `batch_student_idx` (`batch_id`),
CONSTRAINT `batch_student` FOREIGN KEY (`batch_id`) REFERENCES `batch` (`batch_id`) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
CREATE TABLE `course` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`details` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
`staff_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `course_staff_idx` (`staff_id`),
CONSTRAINT `course_staff` FOREIGN KEY (`staff_id`) REFERENCES `staff` (`id`) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
CREATE TABLE `attendence` (
`course_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`student_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`class_date` date DEFAULT NULL,
KEY `att_course_idx` (`course_id`),
KEY `att_student_idx` (`student_id`),
CONSTRAINT `att_course` FOREIGN KEY (`course_id`) REFERENCES `course` (`id`) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION,
CONSTRAINT `att_student` FOREIGN KEY (`student_id`) REFERENCES `student` (`id`) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
Your required data will finally store into table Attendance. From this table data, you will be able to find list of students absent/present per date and per course. Remember, the attendance table should enrich daily from a automated OR a manual process.