Lab 6: Joining Multiple Tables Database Systems Laboratory

Database Systems
Lab 6
Joining multiple tables

In this practical session, we will see how multiple table queries can be implemented.
Obviously, this session will invoke a very important aspect of database systems- JOIN
statement.

Run the script join.sql- it will create the tables. Then insert data into the tables by using
joindata.sql script. At first, we will play with the following two tables named Department
and Location.

DEPARTMENT TABLE
DEPT_ID NAME LOCATION_ID
10 ACCOUNTING 122
20 RESEARCH 124
30 SALES 123
40 OPERATIONS 167
12 RESEARCH 122
13 SALES 122
14 OPERATIONS 122
23 SALES 124
24 OPERATIONS 124
34 OPERATIONS 123
43 SALES 167

LOCATION TABLE
LOCATION_ID REGIONAL_GROUP
122 NEW YORK
124 DALLAS
123 CHICAGO
167 BOSTON
144 SAN FRANCISCO

Say, you want to know the place where the departments of Department table are situated.
From the above 2 tables, you can say Operations department with ID 14 is at location ID
122 means it is in New York. But how will you know that by SQL?

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM location l,department d
WHERE l.location_id=d.location_id;

This query gives you the right answer.

In this case, ALIASING is used. “Location l” means you are representing the table
“Location” with “l”. It is for simplicity. REMEMBER- to get data from 2 tables, you
must have a common field on both the tables.

1
Lab 6: Joining Multiple Tables Database Systems Laboratory

The same effect we now will get with JOIN operation. Try the following query. It gives you
the same result.

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d JOIN location l
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;

You see- the common column of the table is used in this case. SQL facilitates you to do this
with USING clause as well. The following gives you the same result as the previous 2.

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d JOIN location l
USING (location_id);

The USING clause affects the semantics of the SELECT clause. The USING clause tells
Oracle that the tables in the join have identical names for the column in the USING clause.
Oracle then merges those two columns, and recognizes only one such column with the given
name. If you include a join column in the SELECT list, Oracle doesn't allow you to qualify
that column with a table name (or table alias). If you attempt to qualify a join column name
in the SELECT list using either an alias or a table name, you will get an error:

SELECT department.location_id, department.name, location.regional_group

FROM department JOIN location
USING (location_id);

Conditions using multiple columns

Quite often you will encounter a join condition that involves multiple columns from each
table. If a join condition consists of multiple columns, you need to specify all the predicates in
the ON clause. For example, if tables A and B are joined based on columns c1 and c2, the join
condition would be:

SELECT . . .
FROM A JOIN B
ON A.c1 = B.c1 AND A.c2 = B.c2;

If the column names are identical in the two tables, you can use the USING clause and
specify all the columns in one USING clause, separated by commas. The previous join
condition can be rewritten as:

SELECT . . .
FROM A JOIN B
USING (c1, c2);

Natural Join

A natural join between two tables relates the rows from the two tables based on all pairs of
columns, one column from each table, with matching names. You don't specify a join
condition. The following example illustrates a natural join:

SELECT d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d NATURAL JOIN location l;

In this example, the two tables—department and location—have the same name for the
column location_id. Therefore, the join takes place by equating the location_id from the
department table to the location_id from the location table. The preceding query is equivalent
to the following queries:

2
Lab 6: Joining Multiple Tables Database Systems Laboratory

SELECT department.name, location.regional_group

FROM department JOIN location
ON department.location_id = location.location_id;

SELECT department.name, location.regional_group

FROM department JOIN location
USING (location_id);

While using a natural join, you are not allowed to qualify the common columns with table
names or aliases (similar to the effect of the USING clause). For example, if you want to
include the location_id column in the SELECT list, and you specify department.location_id,
you will get an error:

SELECT department.location_id, department.name, location.regional_group

FROM department NATURAL JOIN location;

You need to remove the department qualifier so the location_id column can include it in the
SELECT list:

SELECT location_id, department.name, location.regional_group

FROM department NATURAL JOIN location;

Implicit specification of join conditions can have some unwanted side effects. Let's take the
example of join between the supplier and part tables to illustrate this:

Supplier Table
SUPPLIER_ID
NAME

Part Table
PART_NBR
NAME
SUPPLIER_ID
STATUS
INVENTORY_QTY
UNIT_COST
RESUPPLY_DATE

An inner join between these two tables, generates the following result:

SELECT supplier.supplier_id, part.part_nbr

FROM supplier JOIN part
ON supplier.supplier_id = part.supplier_id;

SUPPLIER_ID PART_NBR
101 HD211
102 P3000

The following example illustrates a natural join between these two tables:

SELECT supplier_id, part.part_nbr

FROM supplier NATURAL JOIN part;

No output. What happened? The reason lies in the fact that, aside from supplier_id, these two
tables have another pair of columns with a common name. That column is name. So, when

3
Lab 6: Joining Multiple Tables Database Systems Laboratory

you ask for a natural join between the supplier and the part tables, the join takes place not
only by equating the supplier_id column of the two tables, but the name column from the two
tables is equated as well. Since, no supplier name is the same as a part name from that same
supplier, no rows are returned by the query. The equivalent inner join of the preceding natural
join is:

SELECT supplier.supplier_id, part.part_nbr

FROM supplier JOIN part
ON supplier.supplier_id = part.supplier_id
AND supplier.name = part.name;

or, expressed via the USING clause:

SELECT supplier_id, part.part_nbr

FROM supplier JOIN part
USING (supplier_id, name);

Cross Joins/ Cartesian Products

Now, take a look at the employee table by

SELECT * FROM employee;

And then take a look at the department table by

SELECT * FROM department;

Take a note at the individual number of records of each table. One has 14 rows and the other
has 13. So, what will be their Cartesian product? 14 multiplied by 13 equals 182, right? Try to
execute the following.

SELECT e.lname, d.name

FROM employee e CROSS JOIN department d;

Since the query didn't specify a join condition, each row from the employee table is combined
with each row from the department table. Needless to say, this result set is of little use. More
often than not, a cross join produces a result set containing misleading rows. Therefore,
unless you are sure that you want a Cartesian product, don't use a cross
join.

Notice the use of the keyword CROSS before the JOIN keyword in the previous example .
If
you omit the CROSS keyword, and don't specify a join condition,
Oracle will throw an error, because it thinks that you are attempting a
regular join and have inadvertently omitted the join condition.

What happens when you specify the CROSS keyword as well as a join
condition through an ON or USING clause? Oracle rejects your query
with an error, and rightly so, because cross joins are joins without join
conditions.

Inner Join

Inner joins are the most commonly used joins. When people refer simply to a "join," they
most likely mean an "inner join." An inner join relates the rows from the source tables based
on the join condition, and returns the rows that satisfy it. For example, to list the name and
department for each employee, you would use the following SQL statement:
4
Lab 6: Joining Multiple Tables Database Systems Laboratory

SELECT e.lname, d.name

FROM employee e JOIN department d
ON e.dept_id = d.dept_id;

And now try this-

SELECT e.lname, d.name
FROM employee e INNER JOIN department d
ON e.dept_id = d.dept_id;
They are the same! The JOIN keyword, unless prefixed with another keyword, means an
inner join. Optionally, you can use the INNER keyword before the JOIN keyword to
explicitly indicate an inner join.

Outer Join

To list all departments even if they are not related to any particular location, you can perform
a LEFT OUTER JOIN between the department and the location tables. For example:

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d LEFT OUTER JOIN location l
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;

Likewise, to list all the locations even if they are not related to any particular department, you
can perform a RIGHT OUTER JOIN between the location and the department tables. For
example:

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d RIGHT OUTER JOIN location l
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;

The LEFT and RIGHT keywords in an outer join query are relative to the position of the
tables in the FROM clause. The same result can be achieved using either a LEFT OUTER
JOIN or a RIGHT OUTER JOIN, by switching the position of the tables. For example, the
following two queries are equivalent:

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d LEFT OUTER JOIN location l
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM location l RIGHT OUTER JOIN department d
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;

In each case, the directional word, either LEFT or RIGHT, points toward the anchor table, the
table that is required. The other table is then the optional table in the join.

Occasionally, you may need the effect of an outer join in both directions, which you can think
of as a combination of LEFT and RIGHT outer joins. For example, you may need to list all
the departments (with or without a location), as well as all the locations (with or without a
department). Use a FULL OUTER JOIN to generate such a result set:

SELECT d.dept_id, d.name, l.regional_group

FROM department d FULL OUTER JOIN location l
ON d.location_id = l.location_id;