What is SQL JOIN
?
SQL JOIN
is a method to retrieve data from two or more database tables.
What are the different SQL JOIN
s ?
There are a total of five JOIN
s. They are :
1. JOIN or INNER JOIN
2. OUTER JOIN
2.1 LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN
2.2 RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN
2.3 FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN
3. NATURAL JOIN
4. CROSS JOIN
5. SELF JOIN
1. JOIN or INNER JOIN :
In this kind of a JOIN
, we get all records that match the condition in both tables, and records in both tables that do not match are not reported.
In other words, INNER JOIN
is based on the single fact that: ONLY the matching entries in BOTH the tables SHOULD be listed.
Note that a JOIN
without any other JOIN
keywords (like INNER
, OUTER
, LEFT
, etc) is an INNER JOIN
. In other words, JOIN
is
a Syntactic sugar for INNER JOIN
(see: Difference between JOIN and INNER JOIN).
2. OUTER JOIN :
OUTER JOIN
retrieves
Either,
the matched rows from one table and all rows in the other table
Or,
all rows in all tables (it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a match).
There are three kinds of Outer Join :
2.1 LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN
This join returns all the rows from the left table in conjunction with the matching rows from the
right table. If there are no columns matching in the right table, it returns NULL
values.
2.2 RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN
This JOIN
returns all the rows from the right table in conjunction with the matching rows from the
left table. If there are no columns matching in the left table, it returns NULL
values.
2.3 FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN
This JOIN
combines LEFT OUTER JOIN
and RIGHT OUTER JOIN
. It returns rows from either table when the conditions are met and returns NULL
value when there is no match.
In other words, OUTER JOIN
is based on the fact that: ONLY the matching entries in ONE OF the tables (RIGHT or LEFT) or BOTH of the tables(FULL) SHOULD be listed.
Note that `OUTER JOIN` is a loosened form of `INNER JOIN`.
3. NATURAL JOIN :
It is based on the two conditions :
- the
JOIN
is made on all the columns with the same name for equality. - Removes duplicate columns from the result.
This seems to be more of theoretical in nature and as a result (probably) most DBMS
don’t even bother supporting this.
4. CROSS JOIN :
It is the Cartesian product of the two tables involved. The result of a CROSS JOIN
will not make sense
in most of the situations. Moreover, we won’t need this at all (or needs the least, to be precise).
5. SELF JOIN :
It is not a different form of JOIN
, rather it is a JOIN
(INNER
, OUTER
, etc) of a table to itself.
JOINs based on Operators
Depending on the operator used for a JOIN
clause, there can be two types of JOIN
s. They are
- Equi JOIN
- Theta JOIN
1. Equi JOIN :
For whatever JOIN
type (INNER
, OUTER
, etc), if we use ONLY the equality operator (=), then we say that
the JOIN
is an EQUI JOIN
.
2. Theta JOIN :
This is same as EQUI JOIN
but it allows all other operators like >, <, >= etc.
Many consider both
EQUI JOIN
and ThetaJOIN
similar toINNER
,OUTER
etcJOIN
s. But I strongly believe that its a mistake and makes the
ideas vague. BecauseINNER JOIN
,OUTER JOIN
etc are all connected with
the tables and their data whereasEQUI JOIN
andTHETA JOIN
are only
connected with the operators we use in the former.Again, there are many who consider
NATURAL JOIN
as some sort of
“peculiar”EQUI JOIN
. In fact, it is true, because of the first
condition I mentioned forNATURAL JOIN
. However, we don’t have to
restrict that simply toNATURAL JOIN
s alone.INNER JOIN
s,OUTER JOIN
s
etc could be anEQUI JOIN
too.