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Inner Join, Self Join and Outer Join: Sen Zhang

This document discusses different types of joins in relational databases including inner joins, outer joins, and self joins. It explains that joins combine data from two or more tables by matching common columns. Inner joins only return rows that match between tables, while outer joins also return non-matching rows with null values. Self joins allow a table to be joined to itself to relate records within the same table, such as linking employees to their supervisors. The document provides examples of SQL syntax for performing different types of joins.

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103 views

Inner Join, Self Join and Outer Join: Sen Zhang

This document discusses different types of joins in relational databases including inner joins, outer joins, and self joins. It explains that joins combine data from two or more tables by matching common columns. Inner joins only return rows that match between tables, while outer joins also return non-matching rows with null values. Self joins allow a table to be joined to itself to relate records within the same table, such as linking employees to their supervisors. The document provides examples of SQL syntax for performing different types of joins.

Uploaded by

mejjagiri
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Inner join, self join and Outer join

Sen Zhang

Joining data together is one of the most significant strengths of a relational database. A join is a query that combines rows from two or more relations. Joins allow database users to combine data from one table with data from one or more other tables or views, or synonyms, as long as they are relations.

Tables are joined two at a time making a new relation (a table generated on the fly) containing all possible combinations of rows from the original two tables (sometimes called a cross join or Cartesian product). See sample script

A join condition is usually used to limit the combinations of table data to just those rows containing columns that match columns in the other table. Most joins are equi-joins where the data from a column in one table exactly matches data in the column of another table.

It is also possible (though usually less efficient) to join using ranges of values or other comparisons between the tables involved. A table may be joined to another table, tables, or even itself (reused multiple times).

It is important to understand that whenever two or more tables/views/synonyms (in fact, they are all relations) are listed in a FROM clause, a join results. Join conditions serve the purpose of limiting the number of rows returned by the join. The absence of a join condition results in all possible combinations of rows from the involved tables, i.e. a Cartesian product, which is usually not useful information.

Inner Joins
An inner join (sometimes called a simple join) is a join of two or more tables that returns only those rows that satisfy the join condition.

Inner Join
Traditional inner joins look for rows that match rows in the other table(s), i.e. to join two tables based on values in one table being equal to values in another table Also known as equality join, equijoin or natural join Returns results only if records exist in both tables

Joining Via Linking Table

Self-Join
A query that joins a table to itself, for example, employee table can be joined to itself to find out subordinate - supervisor pairs. Used when a table has a foreign key relationship to itself (usually parent-child relationship) Must create a table alias and structure the query as if you are joining the table to a copy of itself
FROM table1 alias1, ... Use alias, not table name for select and where clauses

Self-Join Example

From inner join to outer join


A problem with the simple inner join is that only rows that match between tables are returned; while it is also possible that a user might be interested in rows that DO NOT match rows in the other table(s). Finding rows without matches is often referred as Outer Join.

What is an outer join


An outer join extends the result of a simple join (inner join, equ-join, theta join or natural join). An outer join returns all rows that satisfy the join condition and those rows from one table for which no rows from the other satisfy the join condition. Such rows are not returned by a simple join.

What is an outer join


To write a query that performs an outer join of tables A and B and returns all rows from A, apply the outer join operator (+) to all columns of B in the join condition. For all rows in A that have no matching rows in B, Oracle returns NULL for any select list expressions containing columns of B.

Outer join in Oracle 8i


The syntax for performing an outer join in SQL is database-dependent. For example, in Oracle 8i, we will place an "(+)" in the WHERE clause on the other side of the table for which we want to include all the rows. In Oracle 9i, another format is used.

Outer Join
Returns all rows in one table and matching rows in joined table Inner table: all rows are returned, in other word, if all rows need to be returned for one table, that table is called inner table. Outer table: matching rows are returned Outer table marked with a + in join condition inner_table.join_field = outer_table.join_field(+) Null values are inserted for fields in outer table that are not found

How to interpret (+)? Which table (+) should tail?


The oracle outer join operator (+) simply tells SQL engine which table to generate null values for the unmatched row of the opposite table to match the table. Or simply, which side should generate null rows.

Full join
How about if we want to include rows in both tables that cannot find match in the opposite tables? It is called full join. Until now, the only way to accomplish a full join (values missing on both sides of a query) was to Union the results of both left outerjoin and right outerjoin.

Sample scripts in class


See sample scripts distributed in class for various outer joins

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