Complicated table join - sql

Question

I thought I had a good grasp on table joins but there is one problem here I can't figure out.
I am trying to track the progress of students on specifically required courses. Some students are required to complete an exact list of courses before further qualification.
Tables (simplified):
students
--------
id INT PRIMARY KEY
name VARCHAR(50)
student_courses
---------------
student_id INT PRIMARY KEY
course_id TINYINT PRIMARY KEY
course_status TINYINT (Not done, Started, Completed)
steps_done TINYINT
total_steps TINYINT
date_created DATETIME
date_modified DATETIME
courses
-------
id TINYINT PRIMARY KEY
name VARCHAR(50)
I want to insert a list of required courses, for example 5 different courses in the courses table and then select a specific student and get list of all the courses required, whether a row exists for that course in the student_courses table or not.
I guess I could insert all rows from the courses table in the student_courses table for each student, but I don't want that because not all students need to do these courses. And what if new courses are added later.
I just want a result which is something like this:
students table:
id name
--- ------------------
1 George Smith
2 Dana Jones
3 Maria Cobblestone
SELECT * FROM students (JOIN bla bla bla - this is the point where I'm lost...)
WHERE students.id = 1
Result:
id name course_id courses.name course_status steps_done
--- ------------------ --------- ------------ ------------- ----------
1 George Smith 1 Botany Not started 0
1 George Smith 2 Biology NULL NULL
1 George Smith 3 Physics NULL NULL
1 George Smith 4 Algebra Completed 34
1 George Smith 5 Sewing Started 2
If the course_status or steps_done is NULL it means that no row exists for this student for this course in the student_courses table.
The idea is then using this in MS Access (or some other system) and have the row automatically inserted in the student_courses table once you enter a value in the NULL field.

Answer 1

You can't just use an outer join to do this, you need to create a list of all students/classes combinations that you're interested in first, then use that list in a LEFT JOIN. Can be done in a cte/subquery using CROSS JOIN:
;WITH cte AS (SELECT DISTINCT s.id Student_ID
,s.name
,c.id Course_ID
,c.name Class_Name
FROM Students s
CROSS JOIN Courses c)
SELECT cte.*,sc.status
FROM cte
LEFT JOIN student_courses sc
ON cte.course_id = sc.course_id
Can also use a subquery if needs to be done in Access (not 100% on syntax in Access):
SELECT sub.*,sc.status
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT s.id Student_ID
,s.name
,c.id Course_ID
,c.name Class_Name
FROM Students s
CROSS JOIN Courses c
) AS sub
LEFT JOIN student_courses sc
ON sub.course_id = sc.course_id
Demo: SQL Fiddle

Answer 2

You want a left outer join. The first table is from the courses table and is used for the required courses (defined in the where clause).
select s.id, s.name, c.id, c.name, c.course_status, c.steps_done
from (courses as c left join
student_courses as sc
on sc.course_id = c.id and
sc.student_id = 1
) left join
students as s
on sc.student_id = s.id
where c.id in (<list of required courses>)
order by s.id, c.id;
I think I have all the "Access"isms in there.
Actually, the above will be missing the student name when s/he is missing a course. The following is more correct:
select s.id, s.name, c.id, c.name, c.course_status, c.steps_done
from (courses as c left join
student_courses as sc
on sc.course_id = c.id and
sc.student_id = 1
) cross join
students as s
on s.id = 1
where c.id in (<list of required courses>)
order by s.id, c.id;