MYSQL - A little bit of trouble/confusion with join query - mysql

I am trying to put together a mysql query, that links 3 tables together. In essence, the tables are as follows:
products - Contains product information and basic pricing.
product_depts - Linking table that links products to different departments.
promotions - Another linking table, links promotion periods and prices based on product id.
This is the query:
SELECT p.id, `desc` , price1, price2, cost1, taxable, quantity, deptId, sale
FROM products p
INNER JOIN product_depts ON p.id = prodId
INNER JOIN promotions s ON p.id = s.id
WHERE MATCH (
`desc`
)
AGAINST (
'CLOVER'
IN BOOLEAN
MODE
)
ORDER BY `desc`
LIMIT 0 , 30
If the following line is removed:
INNER JOIN promotions s ON p.id = s.id
And sale taken out of the select clause,
What happens, is ALL the products with a description containing "CLOVER", in the products table, are returned.
With the addition of the removed query parts, only the items that are on promotion (have a matching id in the promotions table), are returned. And any additional products containing "CLOVER" in the products table, that are not "on promotion" are left out.
As I have very limited knowledge with mysql, I thought maybe someone that does have a great deal of knowledge on the matter to share... Would like to provide some input with this.
As i understand it though, this would be essentially the same thing as calling deptId from the product_depts table, which works perfectly. So it is confusing me.
What am i doing wrong that only the items that are "on promotion" are displayed and the additional results are left out?
Thank you!

INNER joins basically say "retrieve all records where there's a matching record in BOTH tables".
If I'm reading your question correctly, it sounds like what you'd want is a LEFT or RIGHT join, which translates to "retrieve all records from one table, and (if any) matching records from the other table.
Sounds like you want to get all products, whether they have a promotion or not, but if they do have a promotion, retrieve the promo info as well.
That'd be
SELECT ...
FROM products
INNER JOIN product_depts ON ...
LEFT JOIN promotions ON ...
So... all products MUST have a department, so do an inner join for that particular part of the query. The left join on promotions makes the 'products' table be the LEFT table, so all records from that table are fetched. The promotions table becomes the RIGHT table, and only provides data for the query results if there's a matching record in the promotions table.
So... given 2 products, 1 of which is on sale, you'd get
product #1 department #1 promoinfo #1
product #2 department #2 NULL
for results. Since there's no matching promo information for the #2 product, you get NULL for the promo data.

Related

MySQL inner join query select from same table multiple times

I believe I have formed this question title correctly because I wasn't sure how to form it. As an example, I have summarized my query below.
I have an order table which saves order details like customer id, address and product ids and quantity ordered for each order in a row. So multiple inventory/product ids are saved in a single row.
so my query looks like: this is a summarized query for an easier explanation I have omitted various other fields.
SELECT customer.name,customer.address,tbl_order.order_date,tbl_order.product1_id,tbl_order.product2_id,inventory.product1_name,inventory.product2_name
FROM tbl_order
INNER JOIN customer ON tbl_order.customer_id = customer.id
INNER JOIN inventory on tbl_order.product1_id = inventory.id
INNER JOIN inventory on tbl_order.product2_id = inventory.id
where YEAR(tbl_order.order_date)='$year'
So my question is how to get the inventory details from the inventory table based on each product id from tbl_order. I am running a while loop to show all data for a year
while($row=mysqli_fetch_assoc($sql1))
I can divide this query into 2 and run the inventory query individually but then how to combine the while loop, as sometimes there could also be empty query when some products are not in order table (depending on order to order, not all products are ordered) so this doesn't work
while($row=mysqli_fetch_assoc($sql1)) and ($row1=mysqli_fetch_assoc($inv1)) and ($row2=mysqli_fetch_assoc($inv2))
and so one for 10 products
First, of all you have bad DB design and I kindly advice to normalize your DB.
Second, if you can not re-design the DB you can use multiple joins with aliases like:
SELECT
customer.name, customer.address, tbl_order.order_date,
tbl_order.product1_id, inv1.product1_name,
tbl_order.product2_id, inv2.product2_name
FROM tbl_order
INNER JOIN customer ON tbl_order.customer_id = customer.id
INNER JOIN inventory AS inv1 ON tbl_order.product1_id = inv1.id
INNER JOIN inventory AS inv2 ON tbl_order.product2_id = inv2.id
WHERE YEAR(tbl_order.order_date)='$year'

What is the behaviour of a join on columns not in both tables?

table: users
columns: id
table: products
columns: id
table: product_images
columns: product_id | path
table: cart
columns: user_id | product_id
product_id in the bottom 2 tables corresponds to id in the products table.
user_id in the cart table corresponds to id in the users table.
My friend and I are developing a generic shopping website just for fun.
The requirement: Given a user_id, go through the user's shopping cart and return all corresponding rows in the products table and with exactly 1 image for the product (there may be multiple images).
This is our query (which seems to work):
SELECT products.*, product_images.path
FROM products
INNER JOIN cart
ON cart.product_id = products.id AND cart.user_id = 13 /* arbitrary id */
LEFT OUTER JOIN product_images
ON product_images.product_id = cart.product_id
GROUP BY cart.product_id
The first join is intuitive to me because both tables involved in the join are joining on columns within each table.
It is the 2nd join that I am confused about.
My understanding is that the first join will produce a virtual table.
This virtual table is then joined with the product_images table, but the confusing part is that the ON condition is not using a column belonging directly to the virtual table.
So what exactly is going on here?
Please note that I know how to rewrite the query in a way that is more intuitive to me, and that it is understanding the concept that is important to me.
At first I thought this was uncommon, but I noticed w3schools does the same thing at the bottom of this link: http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_groupby.asp
cart and products are inner joined.
The virtual table going on to the next join includes all columns from cart and all columns from products.
This virtual/logical table will be as below.
SELECT products.id,
cart.user_id,
cart.product_id
FROM products
INNER JOIN cart
ON cart.product_id = products.id
AND cart.user_id = 13;
So there are three columns in this virtual table. products.id,cart.user_id,cart.product_id
This virtual table is then left joined onto product_images using a column from product_images and cart.product_id from the virtual table.

SQL querying multiple tables for information

I have a little dilemma in joining data from 4 tables in one SQL query, I am using MySQL for the DB part and would appriciate any help you can give me.
Here is the task...
I have for tables with columns and data
Sale Items Owner Salesman
-------------- ----------- ----------- --------------
*Salesman_id Item_type *Owner_id *Salesman_id
*Owner_id Item_color Owner_name Salesman_name
Buyer_id *Owner_id
Price
I want to query these tables on the columns I have marked with emphases text. So I can get result like
Item type, Item color, Owner name, Salesman name, Salesman number.
I have gone through a countless number of iteration trying to achieve this both with JOIN and nested queries without sufficient result.
If there is a one-to-one relation you can use inner join
SELECT i.Item_type , i.Item_color ,o.Owner_name,sm.Salesman_name,sm.Salesman_id
FROM Salesman sm
INNER JOIN Sale s ON (s.Salesman_id = sm.Salesman_id )
INNER JOIN Owner o ON (s.Owner_id=o.Owner_id)
INNER JOIN Items i ON (i.Owner_id=o.Owner_id)
If there is one -to- many try with Left join
try this
SELECT Item_type, Item_color, Owner_name, Salesman_name, Sale.Salesman_id FROM Items
INNER JOIN Owner USING(Owner_id)
INNER JOIN Sale USING(Owner_id)
INNER JOIN Salesman ON Salesman.Salesman_id=Sale.Salesman_id
why doesn't the Items table have a primary key?
A solution when we're not joining, and you want it them to just display their values, you can do something like (I know this doesn't directly answer OP's question, but I'm getting there...)
SELECT sale.`salesman_id`,sale.`owner_id`,
items.`order_id`,
owner.`owner_id`,
salesman.`salesman_id`
FROM `Sale` sale,
`Items` items,
`Owner` owner,
`Salesman` salesman
And that should return everything.
However, your question states that we are joining. Could you put some data into something like SQLFiddle so I have some visual representation? and a brief summary of what you're trying to accomplish - as in where you want the joins?

I can't wrap my head around joins

So, alright, I have a few tables. My current query runs against a "historical" table. I want to do a join of some kind to get the most recent status from my Current table. These tables share a like column, called "ID"
Here's the structure
ddCurrent
-ID
-Location
-Status
-Time
ddHistorical
-CID (AI field to keep multiple records per site)
-ID
-Location
-Status
-Time
My goal now is to do a simple join to get all the variables from ddHistorical and the current Status from ddCurrent.
I know that they can be joined on ID since both of them have the same items in their ID tables, I just can't figure out which kind of join is appropriate or why?
I'm sure someone may provide a specific link that goes into great detail explaining, but I'll try to summarize it this way. When writing a query, I try to list the tables from the position of what table do I want to get data from and have that as my first table in the "FROM" clause. Then, do "JOIN" criteria to other tables based on relationships (such as IDs). In your example
FROM
ddHistorical ddH
INNER JOIN ddCurrent ddC
on ddH.ID = ddC.ID
In this case, INNER JOIN (same as JOIN) the ddHistorical table is the left table(listed first for my styling consistency and indentation) and ddCurrent is the right table. Notice my ON criteria that joins them together is also left alias.column = right alias table.column -- again, this is just for mental correlation purposes.
an Inner Join (or JOIN) means a record MUST have a match on each side, otherwise it is discarded.
A LEFT JOIN means give me all records in the LEFT table (ddHistorical in this case), regardless of a matching in the right-side table (ddCurrent). Not practical in this example.
A RIGHT JOIN is the reverse... give me all records from the RIGHT-side table REGARDLESS of a matching record in the left side table. Most of the time you will see LEFT-JOINs more frequently than RIGHT-JOINs.
Now, a sample to mentally get the left-join. You work at a car dealership and have a master table of 10 cars that are sold. For a given month, you want to know what IS NOT selling. So, start with the master table of all cars and look at the sales table for what DID sell. If there is NO such sales activity the right-side table will have NULL value
select
M.CarID,
M.CarModel
from
MasterCarsList M
LEFT JOIN CarSales CS
on M.CarID = CS.CarID
AND month( CS.DateSold ) = 4
where
CS.CarID IS NULL
So, my LEFT join is based on a matching car ID -- AND -- the month of sales activity is 4 (April) as I may not care about sales for Jan-Mar -- but would also qualify year too, but this is a simple sample.
If there is no record in the Car Sales table it will have a NULL value for all columns. I just happen to care about the car ID column since that was the join basis. That is why I am including that in the WHERE clause. For all other types of cars that DO have a sale it will have a value.
This is a common approach you will see in querying where someone looking for all regardless of other... Some use a where NOT EXIST ( subselect ), but those perform slower because they test on every record. Having joins is much faster.
Other examples may be you want a list of all employees of a company, and if they had some certification / training to show it... You still want all employees, but LEFT-JOINING to some certification/training table would expose those extra field as needed.
select
Emp.FullName,
Cert.DateCertified
FROM
Employees Emp
Left Join Certifications Cert
on Emp.EmpID = Cert.EmpID
Hopefully these samples help you understand better the relationship for queries, and now to actually provide answer for your needs.
If what you want is a list of all "Current" items and want to look at their historical past, I would use current FIRST. This might be if your current table of things is 50, but historically your table had 420 items. You don't care about the other 360 items, just those that are current and the history of those.
select
ddC.WhateverColumns,
ddH.WhateverHistoricalColumns
from
ddCurrent ddC
JOIN ddHistorical ddH
on ddC.ID = ddH.ID
If there is always a current field then a simple INNER JOIN will do it
SELECT a.CID, a.ID, a.Location, a.Status, a.Time, b.Status
FROM ddHistorical a
INNER JOIN ddCurrent b
ON a.ID = b.ID
An INNER JOIN will omit any ddHistorical rows that don't have a corresponding ID in ddCurrent.
A LEFT JOIN will include all ddHistorical rows, even if they don't have a corresponding ID in ddCurrent, but the ddCurrent values will be null (because they're unknown).
Also note that a LEFT JOIN is just a specific type of outer join. Don't bother with the others yet - 90% or more of what you'll ever do will be INNER or LEFT.
To include only those ddHistorical rows where the ID is in ddCurrent:
SELECT h.CID, h.ID, h.Location, h.Status, c.Status, h.Time
FROM ddHistorical h
INNER JOIN ddCurrent c ON h.ID = c.ID
If you want to include ddHistorical rows even if the ID isn't in ddCurrent:
SELECT h.CID, h.ID, h.Location, h.Status, c.Status, h.Time
FROM ddHistorical h
LEFT JOIN ddCurrent c ON h.ID = c.ID
If all ddHistorical rows happen to match an ID in ddCurrent, note that both queries will return the same result.

SQL Left join not displaying all rows from left

So a rough structure of my two tables concered is as follows:
Table one: Services
services.id
services.name
Table two: Orders
orders.id
orders.item
orders.service
Table one contains a list of services. And table two is a list of orders. I am trying to generate a list of all orders for services from table two (orders) but also include (Zero) the services that haven't been ordered. I'm aware that that's where the LEFT JOIN comes but it doesn't seem to be working at all. It displays most of the services but there's one or two records (from services) not being displayed. Here's the query i'm using so far..
Any guidance at all is much appreciated, thanks!
select services.name,count(orders.service)
from services
LEFT JOIN orders ON services.id=orders.service
WHERE item IN (1,2,3,4)
group by statuses.service;
Your original selection is fine and should allow all records from the services table through. However you're then restricting this by your where clause. If there was no join for a specific row, item will have a NULL in it which your WHERE clause is filtering out.
SELECT services.name
,COUNT(orders.service)
FROM services
LEFT JOIN orders ON services.id = orders.service
WHERE item IS NULL
OR item IN ( 1, 2, 3, 4 )
GROUP BY statuses.service;
Forgive me if slightly wrong, I'm coming from SQL Server background.
First of all, I believe you've got a typo - statuses.service should be services.name, right?
Since item is a column from the orders table, you should put it in the join condition:
select services.name,count(orders.service)
from services
LEFT JOIN orders ON services.id=orders.service and services.item IN (1,2,3,4)
group by statuses.service;
Otherwise, you filter out the services without orders or whose orders only have items not in (1,2,3,4).
Kind regards, Frank