How to make a one to one left outer join? - sql

I was wondering, is there a way to make a kind of one to one left outer join:
I need a join that matches say table A with table B, for each record on table A it must search for its pair on table B, but there exists only 1 record that matches that condition, so when it has found its pair on B, it must stop and continue with the next row at table A.
What I have is a simple LEFT OUTER JOIN.
select * from A left outer join B on A.ID = B.ID order by (NAME) asc
Thanks in advance!

SQL doesn't work this way. In the first place it does not look at things row-by-row. In the second place what defines the record you want to match on?
Assuming you don't really care which row is selcted, something like this might work:
SELECT *
From tableA
left outer join
(select b.* from tableb b1
join (Select min(Id) from tableb group by id) b2 on b1.id - b2.id) b
on a.id = b.id
BUt it still is pretty iffy that you wil get the records you want when there are multiple records with the id in table b.

The syntax you present in your question is correct. There is no difference in the query for joining on a one-to-one relationship than on a one-to-many.

Related

duplicate query result when join table

I face issue about duplicate data when join table, here my sample data table I have
-- Table A
I want to join with
-- Table B
this my query notation for join both table,
select a.trans_id, name
from tableA a
inner join tableB b
on a.ID_Trans = b.trans_id
and this the result, why I get the duplicating data which should show only two lines of data, please help me to solve this case.
Firstly, as you have been told multiple times in the comments, this is working exactly as you have written, and (more importantly) as intended. You have 2 rows in tableA and those 2 rows match 2 rows in your table tableB according to the ON clause. This means that each join operation, for the each of the rows in tableA, results in 2 rows as well; thus 4 rows (2 * 2 = 4).
Considering that your table, TableA only has one column then it seems that you should be cleaning up that data and deleting the duplicates. There are plenty of examples on how to do that already (example).
Perhaps the column you show us in TableA is one many, and thus instead you have a denormalisation issue, and instead there should be another table with the details of Id_trans and a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE CONSTRAINT/INDEX on it. Then you would join fron that table to TableB.
Finally, what you might be after is an EXISTS, which would look like this:
SELECT B.trans_id, B.[name]
FROM dbo.TableB B
WHERE EXISTS(SELECT 1
FROM dbo.TableA A
WHERE A.ID_Trans = B.trans_id); --Odd that it's called ID_Trans in one table, and Trans_ID in another
As the comments mentioned your query does exactly what you asked it to do but I think you wanted something like:
select a.trans_id, a.name, b.name
from tableA a
inner join tableB b on a.trans_id = b.trans_id
group by a.trans_id, a.name, b.name
Since there are two rows in both table with same ID join will make them four. You can use distinct to remove duplicates:
select distinct a.trans_id, name
from tableA a
inner join tableB b
on a.id_trans = b.trans_id
But I would suggest to use exists:
select trans_id, name
from tableB b
exists (select 1 from tableA a where a.trans_id=b.trans_id)

What is a good way to make multiple full outer join?

I'd like to know if anyone would know an elegant and scalable method to full outer join multiple tables, given that I might want to regularly add new tables to the join?
For now my method consists in full joining table A with table B, store the result as a cte, then full joining the cte to table C, store the result as a cte2, full joining cte2 to table D... you got it.
Creating a new cte every time i want to add another table to the join is not very practical, but every other solutions i found so far have the same issue, there's always some kind of infinite looping either on ctes or in selects (like SELECT blabla FROM (SELECT blabla2 FROM..)).
Is there any way that i don't know that would help me perform this multiple full join without falling in an infinite recursive loop of ctes?
Thanks
EDIT: Sorry it seems it wasn't clear enough
When i perform a multiple full join in one query like:
SELECT
a.*, b.*, c.*
FROM
tableA a
FULL JOIN
tableB b
ON
a.id = b.id
FULL JOIN
tableC c
ON
a.id = c.id
If the id is present in tableB and tableC but not tableA, my result will create two lines where there should be one, because i joined b to a and c to a but not b to c. That's why i need to full join the result of the full join of a and b to c.
So if i have let's say five table instead of three, i need to full join the result of the full join of the result of the full join of the result of the full join... x)
This fiddle illustrates the problem.
If you want the rows from tables B and C to join, you need to accomodate the fact that maybe the data comes from table B and not A. The easiest is probably to use COALESCE.
Your join should therefore look like:
SELECT a.*, b.*, c.*
FROM tableA a
FULL JOIN tableB b ON a.id = b.id
FULL JOIN tableC c ON COALESCE(a.id, b.id) = c.id
-- FULL JOIN tableD d ON COALESCE(a.id, b.id, c.id) = d.id
-- FULL JOIN tableE e ON COALESCE(a.id, b.id, c.id, d.id) = e.id
Most databases that support FULL JOIN also support USING, which is the simplest way to do what you want:
SELECT *
FROM tableA a FULL JOIN
tableB b
USING (id) FULL JOIN
tableC c
USING (id);
The semantics of USING mean that only non-NULL values are used, if such a value is available.

Having problems with SQL Joins

Table A
Table B
I tried to use LEFT OUTER JOIN but it seems not working..
I want the query to extract all data from Table A with 0 as average score if there is no data yet for the specified parameter. Meaning, in Figure 3, it should have shown ID 2 with 0 on s. Can anyone help me figure out the solution?
You have the table names switched in the join. To keep all of Table A then it needs to be the table listed on the left side of the left join. Also anything that you want to only affect the output of table B, and not filter the entire results, should be moved to the left join on clause. Should be:
SELECT a.id,
Avg(Isnull(b.score, 0)) AS s
FROM a
LEFT OUTER JOIN b
ON a.id = b.id
AND b.kind = 'X'
GROUP BY a.id

Need help with a sql query that has an inner and outer join

I really need help getting this query right. I can't share actual table and column names, but will try my best to layout the problem simply.
Assume the following tables. The tables and keys CANNOT be changed. Period. I don't care if you think it's a bad design, this question isn't a design question, it's on SQL syntax.
Table A - Primary key named id1
Table B - Contains two foreign keys, TableA.id1 and Foo.id2(ignore Foo, it doesn't matter for this)
Table C - Contains two foreign keys, TableA.id1 and Foo.id2, additional interesting
columns.
Constraints:
The SQL gets a set of id1s passed in as an argument.
It must return a list of Table C rows.
It must only return Table C rows where a Table B row exists with a matching TableA.id1 and Foo.id2 - There ARE rows in Table C that don't match Table B
A row MUST be returned for every id1 passed in, even if no Table C row exists.
At first I tried a Left Outer Join from Table A to Table B then an Inner Join to Table C. That violates the 4th rule above, as the Inner Join drops out those rows.
Next I tried two Left Outer joins. This is closer, but has the side effect of including rows that match the Table A join to Table B, but don't have a corresponding Table C entry, which isn't what I want.
So, here's what I came up with.
SELECT
a.id1,
c.*
FROM
TableB b
INNER JOIN
TableC c USING (id1,id2)
RIGHT OUTER JOIN
TableA a USING (id1)
WHERE
a.id1 in (x,y,z)
I'm a bit wary of a Right Outer Join, as the documentation I've read says it can be replaced with a Left Outer, but it doesn't appear so for this case. It also seems a bit rare, which is making other devs nervous, so I'm being cautious.
So, three questions in one.
Is this correct?
Did I use the Right Outer Join correctly?
Is there a cleaner way to achieve the same thing?
EDIT: DB is MySQL
You can rewrite it as a LEFT OUTER JOIN by using parentheses. In pseudo-SQL change this:
SELECT ...
FROM b
INNER JOIN c ON ...
RIGHT OUTER JOIN a ON ...
to this:
SELECT ...
FROM a
LEFT OUTER JOIN (
b INNER JOIN c ON ...
) ON ...
You can use an EXISTS clause, which sometimes works better
SELECT
a.id1,
c.*
FROM TableA a
LEFT JOIN TableC c
ON c.id1 = a.id1 AND EXISTS (
select *
from TableB b
where b.id1=c.id1 and b.id2=c.id2)
WHERE
a.id1 in (x,y,z)
As you have written it, it works because ANSI JOINs are always processed top to bottom. Since you need to test B against C before joining to A, it is about the only way to write it without introducing a subquery [(B x C) RIGHT JOIN A]. However, a bad query plan could perform all records in B and C (B x C) before right joining to A.
The EXISTS method efficiently uses the filter on A, then LEFT JOINs to C and for each C found, validates that it also exists in B (or discards).
Q's
Yes your query is correct
Yes
EXISTS should work better
Yeah, you need to start with TableA and then add tables B and C using joins. The only reason you even need TableA is to make sure you have a row for each parameter.
Select a.id1,c.*
From
TableA a
Left Join TableB b on a.id1=b.id1
Left Join TableC c on b.id1=c.id1 and b.id2=c.id2
Where a.id1 in (x,y,z)
You need to do OUTER joins all the way across, or rows that are missing in B will also cause data from A to be filtered out of the result set. By joining C to B (instead of directly to A) you are using B to filter. You could do it with a complicated EXISTS clause, but this is cleaner.

Select multiple tables when one table is empty in MySQL

I'm trying to do
SELECT * FROM a, b
However, it doesn't return anything if one of the tables is empty. How do I make it so it returns 'a' even if the other one is empty?
Using two tables in the from clause is functionally equivalent to a cross join:
select *
from A
cross join
B
This returns a row of A for every row in B. When B is empty, the result is empty too. You can fix that by using a left join. With a left join, you can return rows even if one of the tables is empty. For example:
select *
from A
left join
B
on 1=1
As the condition 1=1 is always true, this is just like a cross join except it also works for empty tables.
SELECT * FROM a LEFT JOIN b ON a.ID = b.ID
Will return everything from a even if b is empty.
You should do a left join.
Like this
SELECT *
FROM A
LEFT JOIN B ON A.ID = B.ID
Then you receive the rows in A and the respective row in B if exists.
SELECT a.*, b.* FROM a LEFT JOIN b ON a.id = b.id
in this example id is just example name for join key
The query mentioned above display join of both tables if a contain 2 record and b contain 7 records it displays 7*2 = 14 records. In your case one of the table is empty( with 0 records), it will not display any data. If still you want to display data and tables are not having any relationship, you need to check if count of both tables greater that 0. Otherwise display records from only one table which is not empty.