How to Use Join?

Combining tables side by side is a join. Tables are combined by matching data in a column — the column that they have in common. The combined results table produced by a join contains all the columns from both tables. For instance, if one table has two columns (memberID and height), and the second table has two columns (memberID and weight), a join results in a table with four columns: memberID (from the first table), height, memberID (from the second table), and weight.

The two common types of joins are an inner join and an outer join. The difference between an inner and outer join is in the number of rows included in the results table. The results table produced by an inner join contains only rows that existed in both tables. The combined table produced by an outer join contains all rows that existed in one table with blanks in the columns for the rows that did not exist in the second table. For instance, if table1 contains a row for Joe and a row for Sally, and table2 contains only a row for Sally, an inner join would contain only one row: the row for Sally. However, an outer join would contain two rows — a row for Joe and a row for Sally — even though the row for Joe would have a blank field for weight. The results table for the outer join contains all the rows for one table. If any of the rows for that table don’t exist in the second table, the columns for the second table are empty. Clearly, the contents of the results table are determined by which table contributes all its rows, requiring the second table to match it. Two kinds of outer joins control which table sets the rows and which match: a LEFT JOIN and a RIGHT JOIN. You use different SELECT queries for an inner join and the two types of outer joins. The following query is an inner join:

SELECT columnnamelist FROM table1,table2
WHERE table1.col2 = table2.col2
And these queries are outer joins:
SELECT columnnamelist FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2
ON table1.col1=table2.col2
SELECT columnnamelist FROM table1 RIGHT JOIN table2
ON table1.col1=table2.col2

In all three queries, table1 and table2 are the tables to be joined. You can join more than two tables. In both queries, col1 and col2 are the names of the columns being matched to join the tables. The tables are matched based on the data in these columns. These two columns can have the same name or different names. The two columns must contain the same type of data.