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.