MySql crazy join thorugh a grouping table - mysql

Question

I have a database structure with the following setup:
po: id, stockNumber, factoryId, other columns
order: id, stockNumber, factoryId, other columns
stock_number: id, stockNumber, groupId
factory: id, name, groupId
The important part here is the stock_number/factory tables. The groupId column is just an integer and if two or more rows in the table have the same value then their stock numbers/factory are considered the same. Typically this is used for different sizes of the same product.
What I'd like to do is write a query that will join "order" to "po" through the group of stock_number and factory so I can find orders with no matching po. Also the factory has to match the same way.
I have this query if I have a specific stock number/factory in mind but I'd like to update it to query the whole orders table for me:
SELECT id
FROM order
WHERE
styleNumber IN (SELECT a.stockNumber FROM stock_number a INNER JOIN stock_number b ON a.groupId = b.groupId or a.id = b.id WHERE b.stockNumber = '123')
AND factoryId IN (SELECT a.submitter_id FROM submitter a INNER JOIN submitter b ON a.groupId = b.groupId OR a.submitter_id = b.submitter_id WHERE b.SUBMITTER_ID = 'alpha');
EDIT: I came up with this query which I think might be on the right track. It only joins in the stock number so it doesn't do factory yet. Can anyone confirm if I'm going in the correct direction:
SELECT *
FROM order o
LEFT JOIN stock_number s_o ON o.stockNumber = s_o.stockNumber
LEFT JOIN stock_number s_p ON s_o.groupId = s_p.groupId
LEFT JOIN po p ON s_p.stockNumber = p.stockNumber
WHERE p.id IS NULL;

Answer 1

Just join all the tables.
select o.id
FROM order AS o
JOIN stock_number AS sn ON sn.stockNumber = o.stockNumber
JOIN submitter AS su ON ON o.factoryId = su.submitter_id

Answer 2

You could use an anti-join pattern. In this example, it looks complicated because of the two relationship tables. But a query something like this:
SELECT o.id
, o.stockNumber
, o.factoryId
FROM `order` o
LEFT
JOIN `stock_number` s
ON s.stockNumber = o.stockNumber
LEFT
JOIN `factory` f
ON f.id = o.factoryId
AND f.groupId = s.groupId
LEFT
JOIN `po` p
ON p.stockNumber = s.stockNumber
AND p.factoryId = f.id
WHERE p.id IS NULL
The anti-join pattern is easier to visualize with a simpler example. Say you had the order table (as in your example), and an order_line table, with rows related to the order table by the order_id column.
order_line: id, order_id, othercolumns
To get order along with matching order_line rows:
SELECT o.id AS order_id
, l.id AS line_id
FROM `order` o
JOIN `order_line` l
ON l.order_id = o.id
To include rows from order that don't have any matching rows in order_line, we can use an outer join. We add the LEFT keyword:
SELECT o.id AS order_id
, l.id AS line_id
FROM `order` o
LEFT
JOIN `order_line` l
ON l.order_id = o.id
That gets all rows from order, including rows that don't have a matching row in order_line. The trick now is to exclude all the rows that have a matching row. For any rows that didn't have a match, the columns from order_line will be NULL. So we can add a test in the WHERE clause, to exclude rows that had a match.
SELECT o.id AS order_id
, l.id AS line_id
FROM `order` o
LEFT
JOIN `order_line` l
ON l.order_id = o.id
WHERE l.order_id IS NULL
That gets us rows from order that don't have a matching row in order_line.
We can use this same pattern in a more complicated query. We use outer join operations, and rows from order that don't have a matching row in po will have NULL values for the columns from po.