While joining 2 tables, can i use *? - mysql

Select * from hospital,favorite
Where hospital.h_id=favorite.h_id AND favorite.u_id=$uid;
Is this query valid?
I mean, while joining 2 tables can i select all records from both tables by using *?

Yep, by the SQL specification * means "all columns".
The result of your SQL will have all columns of both tables. In this result some columns may have the same name (if they exist on both tables) and that's OK.
If you want to differentiate columns with the same name, you can assign an alias to each specific column. However, to do this you won't be using * anymore but the full list of columns.

Related

Is SELECT * clear enough to specify which query we are referring to?

I am new to mySQL.
I am following Mosh's tutorial to familiarize myself to SQL.
Here's my question for the following code.
SELECT *
FROM order_items
WHERE order_id = 6 AND unit_price*quantity > 30
When I looked up about SELECT *, it says: * means to return all all columns of the queried tables. Then I think SELECT * means that it grabs all tables from all schema.
My question is: Isn't it a bit inefficient and confusing to return all column provided my understanding is right? If the database become bigger and bigger, it will consume unnecessary effort to look up the keyword, so I think SELECT should specify what table it is referring to. Thanks for reading! 🥰
SELECT * does not fetch all tables from all schema. It only fetches the columns from the table you reference in your FROM clause. It only fetches the rows that match your WHERE clause.
The mistake is understandable given this statement in the MySQL documentation:
A select list consisting only of a single unqualified * can be used as shorthand to select all columns from all tables:
SELECT * FROM t1 INNER JOIN t2 ...
What they mean by "all tables" is only all tables referenced in this query. And only those in FROM or JOIN clauses. Not all tables everywhere.

use column names from inner query select the columns to display in outer query

My scenario is as follows( in MySQL)
I have a table say table 1, which has 2 columns:
userID, column_acess
Table 2 which has a list of columns say col1,col2,col3, etc.
Now What I would like to do is use pymySQL to query table 1 for the columns a particular userID is allowed to acesss, by inspecting the column, acess field ( which will contain a comma seperated list of columns in tabl2), and use that result in another sql query ( which works on table2) to actually get the data from the respective columns a user is allowed to acess.
So essentially I would like something like:
Select (Select column_acess from tabl1 where user_ID='123') from table2
So inner query should return the list of columns say col1, col2, which would be used to select the columns in the outer query in table2
How do I do that in mySQL?
I strongly encourage you too read this post. You should either first store columns in variable or use dynamic sql query. Use SELECT result as COLUMN name in other SELECT
BTW your schema is not even in 1 NF since you don’t have atomic values in table 1. You should avoid that.
MySQL supports the granting of column-level privileges to users, using the standard grant statement.
I would suggest that you start with the documentation on this subject.
An alternative to using grant for columns is to create views for different user types. This is, in fact, the more general solution, because the views can filter rows as well as columns. The idea is that the underlying tables are not directly accessible. The views are, so all access needs to go through the views.

How can I control table name when multiple tables are selected?

I'm using MySQL and I selected three tables in one statement like that:
SELECT * FROM tb_i, tb_s, tb_t
But I need case control by their table names. If a row from tb_s it returns tb_s on additional column table_name.
How can I get table name from this statement?
The way you add up your tables now is a JOIN - meaning that every row is a Cartesian product of three of them - so each row is returned from all the three tables.
If you would like to concatenate the data from the three tables you should use UNION ALL which assumes that the columns are of the same structure. Then you would able to mark the origin table, with an addition constant field.
For instance in your case:
SELECT tb_i.*,'tb_i' as source
FROM tb_i
UNION ALL
SELECT tb_s.*,'tb_s'
FROM tb_s
UNION ALL
SELECT tb_t.*,'tb_t'
FROM tb_t
where the source column is a constant string per each table.

Subquery for fetching table name

I have a query like this :
SELECT * FROM (SELECT linktable FROM adm_linkedfields WHERE name = 'company') as cbo WHERE group='BEST'
Basically, the table name for the main query is fetched through the subquery.
I get an error that #1054 - Unknown column 'group' in 'where clause'
When I investigate (removing the where clause), I find that the query only returns the subquery result at all times.
Subquery table adm_linkedfields has structure id | name | linktable
Currently am using MySQL with PDO but the query should be compatible with major DBs (viz. Oracle, MSSQL, PgSQL and MySQL)
Update:
The subquery should return the name of the table for the main query. In this case it will return tbl_company
The table tbl_company for the main query has this structure :
id | name | group
Thanks in advance.
Dynamic SQL doesn't work like that, what you created is an inline-view, read up on that. What's more, you can't create a dynamic sql query that will work on every db. If you have a limited number of linktables you could try using left-joins or unions to select from all tables but if you don't have a good reason you don't want that.
Just select the tablename in one query and then make another one to access the right table (by creating the query string in php).
Here is an issue:
SELECT * FROM (SELECT linktable FROM adm_linkedfields WHERE name = 'company') as cbo
WHERE group='BEST';
You are selecting from DT which contains only one column "linktable", then you cant put any other column in where clause of outer block. Think in terms of blocks the outer select is refering a DT which contains only one column.
Your problem is similar when you try to do:
create table t1(x1 int);
select * from t1 where z1 = 7; //error
Your query is:
SELECT *
FROM (SELECT linktable
FROM adm_linkedfields
WHERE name = 'company'
) cbo
WHERE group='BEST'
First, if you are interested in cross-database compatibility, do not name columns or tables after SQL reserved words. group is a really, really bad name for a column.
Second, the from clause is returning a table containing a list of names (of tables, but that is irrelevant). There is no column called group, so that is the problem you are having.
What can you do to fix this? A naive solution would be to run the subquery, run it, and use the resulting table name in a dynamic statement to execute the query you want.
The fundamental problem is your data structure. Having multiple tables with the same structure is generally a sign of a bad design. You basically have two choices.
One. If you have control over the database structure, put all the data in a single table, linktable for instance. This would have the information for all companies, and a column for group (or whatever you rename it). This solution is compatible across all databases. If you have lots and lots of data in the tables (think tens of millions of rows), then you might think about partitioning the data for performance reasons.
Two. If you don't have control over the data, create a view that concatenates all the tables together. Something like:
create view vw_linktable as
select 'table1' as which, t.* from table1 t union all
select 'table2', t.* from table2 t
This is also compatible across all databases.

MySQL: Merge two tables (same schema) and create a new one - SINGLE QUERY

I have two tables with exactly the same schema.
I would like to have a 3rd table, containing all the data of these two tables combined.
How can I do this with an INSERT INTO query (single query doing this)?
I know I can do this with: INSERT INTOname_of_new_tableSELECT DISTINCT * FROMname_of_old_table but then I would need to do it twice. I am seeking to doing this with a SINGLE query.
Thank you.
INSERT INTO new_table
SELECT * FROM old_table_1
UNION
SELECT * FROM old_table_2
Removed your DISTINCT, as UNION has an implied DISTINCT (UNION ALL does not have this). This will only work if the tables are identical in column count and have similar column type, however. Then again, it sounds like that's your situation.