Understanding How Join Works When 3 or More Tables Are Involved. [Sql]

Understanding how JOIN works when 3 or more tables are involved. [SQL]

Conceptually here is what happens when you join three tables together.

1. The optimizer comes up with a plan, which includes a join order. It could be A, B, C, or C, B, A or any of the combinations
2. The query execution engine applies any predicates (WHERE clause) to the first table that doesn't involve any of the other tables. It selects out the columns mentioned in the JOIN conditions or the SELECT list or the ORDER BY list. Call this result A
3. It joins this result set to the second table. For each row it joins to the second table, applying any predicates that may apply to the second table. This results in another temporary resultset.
4. Then it joins in the final table and applies the ORDER BY

This is conceptually what happens. Infact there are many possible optimizations along the way. The advantage of the relational model is that the sound mathematical basis makes various transformations of plan possible while not changing the correctness.

For example, there is really no need to generate the full result sets along the way. The ORDER BY may instead be done via accessing the data using an index in the first place. There are lots of types of joins that can be done as well.

SQL Inner-join with 3 tables?

You can do the following (I guessed on table fields,etc)

SELECT s.studentname
    , s.studentid
    , s.studentdesc
    , h.hallname
FROM students s
INNER JOIN hallprefs hp
    on s.studentid = hp.studentid
INNER JOIN halls h
    on hp.hallid = h.hallid

Based on your request for multiple halls you could do it this way. You just join on your Hall table multiple times for each room pref id:

SELECT     s.StudentID
    , s.FName
    , s.LName
    , s.Gender
    , s.BirthDate
    , s.Email
    , r.HallPref1
    , h1.hallName as Pref1HallName
    , r.HallPref2 
    , h2.hallName as Pref2HallName
    , r.HallPref3
    , h3.hallName as Pref3HallName
FROM  dbo.StudentSignUp AS s 
INNER JOIN RoomSignUp.dbo.Incoming_Applications_Current AS r 
    ON s.StudentID = r.StudentID 
INNER JOIN HallData.dbo.Halls AS h1 
    ON r.HallPref1 = h1.HallID
INNER JOIN HallData.dbo.Halls AS h2
    ON r.HallPref2 = h2.HallID
INNER JOIN HallData.dbo.Halls AS h3
    ON r.HallPref3 = h3.HallID

Joining multiple tables in SQL

When joining multiple tables the output of each join logically forms a virtual table that goes into the next join.

So in the example in your question the composite result of joining the first 5 tables would be treated as the left hand table.

See Itzik Ben-Gan's Logical Query Processing Poster for more about this.

The virtual tables involved in the joins can be controlled by positioning the ON clause. For example

SELECT *
FROM   T1
       INNER JOIN T2
         ON T2.C = T1.C
       INNER JOIN T3
                  LEFT JOIN T4
                    ON T4.C = T3.C
         ON T3.C = T2.C 

is equivalent to (T1 Inner Join T2) Inner Join (T3 Left Join T4)

In SQL How to choose two of three or more tables to join based on a condition?

You can join tables with conditions. Just add the condition to your Join statement. Here is an example:

SELECT 
...
COALESCE(A.Price, B.Price, C.Price)
...
FROM Product P
LEFT OUTER JOIN TableA A ON A.ProductId = P.ProductId AND YourConditionA
LEFT OUTER JOIN TableB B ON B.ProductId = P.ProductId AND YourConditionB
LEFT OUTER JOIN TableC C ON C.ProductId = P.ProductId AND YourConditionC

With COALESCE you can select the first not null value.

SQL Inner join more than two tables

SELECT * 
FROM table1 
INNER JOIN table2
      ON table1.primaryKey=table2.table1Id
INNER JOIN table3
      ON table1.primaryKey=table3.table1Id

SQL joining three tables, join precedence

All kinds of outer and normal joins are in the same precedence class and operators take effect left-to-right at a given nesting level of the query. You can put the join expression on the right side in parentheses to cause it to take effect first. Remember that you will have to move the ON clauses around so that they stay with their joins—the join in parentheses takes its ON clause with it into the parentheses, so it now comes textually before the other ON clause which will be after the parentheses in the outer join statement.

(PostgreSQL example)

In

SELECT * FROM a LEFT JOIN b ON (a.id = b.id) JOIN c ON (b.ref = c.id);

the a-b join takes effect first, but we can force the b-c join to take effect first by putting it in parentheses, which looks like:

SELECT * FROM a LEFT JOIN (b JOIN c ON (b.ref = c.id)) ON (a.id = b.id);

Often you can express the same thing without extra parentheses by moving the joins around and changing the direction of the outer joins, e.g.

SELECT * FROM b JOIN c ON (b.ref = c.id) RIGHT JOIN a ON (a.id = b.id);

SQL Join: Are selects between more than 2 tables still joins?

Inner joins and outer joins are perfectly reasonable to use with more than 2 tables.

Inner joins force the result to display only data that has whatever row you joined on, whereas outer joins display all data no matter what.

Let us say you wanted to join 4 tables together...

select * from testtable
inner join testable2 on col1 = othercolumn
inner join testable3 on col2 = othercolumn
leftjoin testable4 on col3 = othercolumn

In this case, it would return only results that existed in the inner joins, but the result would not have to exist in the outside/left join. You are forcing testtables 2 & 3 to have a value on what you are joining on.. it cannot be null.

The left join does not care if the value is null, and will show results anyway.
I hope this helps some... Basically.. if you inner join on a value, and it can possibly be null, then the entire query will show blank. This is the scenario you would use an outter join.. you are not forcing the value to exist.

SQL JOIN and different types of JOINs

What is SQL JOIN ?

SQL JOIN is a method to retrieve data from two or more database tables.

What are the different SQL JOINs ?

There are a total of five JOINs. They are :

  1. JOIN or INNER JOIN
  2. OUTER JOIN

     2.1 LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN
     2.2 RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN
     2.3 FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN

  3. NATURAL JOIN
  4. CROSS JOIN
  5. SELF JOIN

1. JOIN or INNER JOIN :

In this kind of a JOIN, we get all records that match the condition in both tables, and records in both tables that do not match are not reported.

In other words, INNER JOIN is based on the single fact that: ONLY the matching entries in BOTH the tables SHOULD be listed.

Note that a JOIN without any other JOIN keywords (like INNER, OUTER, LEFT, etc) is an INNER JOIN. In other words, JOIN is
a Syntactic sugar for INNER JOIN (see: Difference between JOIN and INNER JOIN).

2. OUTER JOIN :

OUTER JOIN retrieves

Either,
the matched rows from one table and all rows in the other table
Or,
all rows in all tables (it doesn't matter whether or not there is a match).

There are three kinds of Outer Join :

2.1 LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN

This join returns all the rows from the left table in conjunction with the matching rows from the
right table. If there are no columns matching in the right table, it returns NULL values.

2.2 RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN

This JOIN returns all the rows from the right table in conjunction with the matching rows from the
left table. If there are no columns matching in the left table, it returns NULL values.

2.3 FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN

This JOIN combines LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN. It returns rows from either table when the conditions are met and returns NULL value when there is no match.

In other words, OUTER JOIN is based on the fact that: ONLY the matching entries in ONE OF the tables (RIGHT or LEFT) or BOTH of the tables(FULL) SHOULD be listed.

Note that `OUTER JOIN` is a loosened form of `INNER JOIN`.

3. NATURAL JOIN :

It is based on the two conditions :

1. the JOIN is made on all the columns with the same name for equality.
2. Removes duplicate columns from the result.

This seems to be more of theoretical in nature and as a result (probably) most DBMS
don't even bother supporting this.

4. CROSS JOIN :

It is the Cartesian product of the two tables involved. The result of a CROSS JOIN will not make sense
in most of the situations. Moreover, we won't need this at all (or needs the least, to be precise).

5. SELF JOIN :

It is not a different form of JOIN, rather it is a JOIN (INNER, OUTER, etc) of a table to itself.

JOINs based on Operators

Depending on the operator used for a JOIN clause, there can be two types of JOINs. They are

1. Equi JOIN
2. Theta JOIN

1. Equi JOIN :

For whatever JOIN type (INNER, OUTER, etc), if we use ONLY the equality operator (=), then we say that
the JOIN is an EQUI JOIN.

2. Theta JOIN :

This is same as EQUI JOIN but it allows all other operators like >, <, >= etc.

Many consider both EQUI JOIN and Theta JOIN similar to INNER, OUTER
etc JOINs. But I strongly believe that its a mistake and makes the
ideas vague. Because INNER JOIN, OUTER JOIN etc are all connected with
the tables and their data whereas EQUI JOIN and THETA JOIN are only
connected with the operators we use in the former.

Again, there are many who consider NATURAL JOIN as some sort of
"peculiar" EQUI JOIN. In fact, it is true, because of the first
condition I mentioned for NATURAL JOIN. However, we don't have to
restrict that simply to NATURAL JOINs alone. INNER JOINs, OUTER JOINs
etc could be an EQUI JOIN too.

Three table join with joins other than INNER JOIN

Yes, I do use all three of those JOINs, although I tend to stick to using just LEFT (OUTER) JOINs instead of inter-mixing LEFT and RIGHT JOINs. I also use FULL OUTER JOINs and CROSS JOINs.

In summary, an INNER JOIN restricts the resultset only to those records satisfied by the JOIN condition. Consider the following tables

EDIT: I've renamed the Table names and prefix them with @ so that Table Variables can be used for anyone reading this answer and wanting to experiment.

If you'd also like to experiment with this in the browser, I've set this all up on SQL Fiddle too;

@Table1

id | name
---------
1  | One
2  | Two
3  | Three
4  | Four

@Table2

id | name
---------
1  | Partridge
2  | Turtle Doves
3  | French Hens
5  | Gold Rings

SQL code

DECLARE @Table1 TABLE (id INT PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED, [name] VARCHAR(25))

INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES(1, 'One');
INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES(2, 'Two');
INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES(3, 'Three');
INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES(4, 'Four');

DECLARE @Table2 TABLE (id INT PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED, [name] VARCHAR(25))

INSERT INTO @Table2 VALUES(1, 'Partridge');
INSERT INTO @Table2 VALUES(2, 'Turtle Doves');
INSERT INTO @Table2 VALUES(3, 'French Hens');
INSERT INTO @Table2 VALUES(5, 'Gold Rings');

An INNER JOIN SQL Statement, joined on the id field

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
INNER JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id

Results in

id | name | name
----------------
1  | One  | Partridge
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves
3  | Three| French Hens

A LEFT JOIN will return a resultset with all records from the table on the left hand side of the join (if you were to write out the statement as a one liner, the table that appears first) and fields from the table on the right side of the join that match the join expression and are included in the SELECT clause. Missing details will be populated with NULL

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
LEFT JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id

Results in

id | name | name
----------------
1  | One  | Partridge
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves
3  | Three| French Hens
4  | Four | NULL

A RIGHT JOIN is the same logic as a LEFT JOIN but will return all records from the right-hand side of the join and fields from the left side that match the join expression and are included in the SELECT clause.

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
RIGHT JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id

Results in

id | name | name
----------------
1  | One  | Partridge
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves
3  | Three| French Hens
NULL| NULL| Gold Rings

Of course, there is also the FULL OUTER JOIN, which includes records from both joined tables and populates any missing details with NULL.

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
FULL OUTER JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id

Results in

id | name | name
----------------
1  | One  | Partridge
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves
3  | Three| French Hens
4  | Four | NULL
NULL| NULL| Gold Rings

And a CROSS JOIN (also known as a CARTESIAN PRODUCT), which is simply the product of cross applying fields in the SELECT statement from one table with the fields in the SELECT statement from the other table. Notice that there is no join expression in a CROSS JOIN

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
CROSS JOIN
    @Table2 t2

Results in

id | name  | name
------------------
1  | One   | Partridge
2  | Two   | Partridge
3  | Three | Partridge
4  | Four  | Partridge
1  | One   | Turtle Doves
2  | Two   | Turtle Doves
3  | Three | Turtle Doves
4  | Four  | Turtle Doves
1  | One   | French Hens
2  | Two   | French Hens
3  | Three | French Hens
4  | Four  | French Hens
1  | One   | Gold Rings
2  | Two   | Gold Rings
3  | Three | Gold Rings
4  | Four  | Gold Rings

EDIT:

Imagine there is now a Table3

@Table3

id | name
---------
2  | Prime 1
3  | Prime 2
5  | Prime 3

The SQL code

DECLARE @Table3 TABLE (id INT PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED, [name] VARCHAR(25))

INSERT INTO @Table3 VALUES(2, 'Prime 1');
INSERT INTO @Table3 VALUES(3, 'Prime 2');
INSERT INTO @Table3 VALUES(5, 'Prime 3');

Now all three tables joined with INNER JOINS

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name,
    t3.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
INNER JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id
INNER JOIN
    @Table3 t3
    ON 
        t1.id = t3.id

Results in

id | name | name         | name
-------------------------------
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves | Prime 1
3  | Three| French Hens  | Prime 2

It might help to understand this result by thinking that records with id 2 and 3 are the only ones common to all 3 tables and are also the field we are joining each table on.

Now all three with LEFT JOINS

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name,
    t3.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
LEFT JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id
LEFT JOIN
    @Table3 t3
    ON 
        t1.id = t3.id

Results in

id | name | name         | name
-------------------------------
1  | One  | Partridge    | NULL
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves | Prime 1
3  | Three| French Hens  | Prime 2
4  | Four | NULL         | NULL

Joel's answer is a good explanation for explaining this resultset (Table1 is the base/origin table).

Now with a INNER JOIN and a LEFT JOIN

SELECT 
    t1.id,
    t1.name,
    t2.name,
    t3.name
FROM
    @Table1 t1
INNER JOIN
    @Table2 t2
    ON 
        t1.id = t2.id
LEFT JOIN
    @Table3 t3
    ON 
        t1.id = t3.id

Results in

id | name | name         | name
-------------------------------
1  | One  | Partridge    | NULL
2  | Two  | Turtle Doves | Prime 1
3  | Three| French Hens  | Prime 2

Although we do not know the order in which the query optimiser will perform the operations, we will look at this query from top to bottom to understand the resultset. The INNER JOIN on ids between Table1 and Table2 will restrict the resultset to only those records satisfied by the join condition i.e. the three rows that we saw in the very first example. This temporary resultset will then be LEFT JOINed to Table3 on ids between Table1 and Tables; There are records in Table3 with id 2 and 3, but not id 1, so t3.name field will have details in for 2 and 3 but not 1.

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