DBMS Joins: Inner, THETA, Outer, Equi Types of Join

Operations
guru99.com/joins-sql-left-right.html

By Richard Peterson August 25, 2022

What is Join in DBMS?

Join in DBMS is a binary operation which allows you to combine join product and
selection in one single statement. The goal of creating a join condition is that it helps you
to combine the data from two or more DBMS tables. The tables in DBMS are associated
using the primary key and foreign keys.

In this DBMS tutorial, you will learn:

Types of Join
There are mainly two types of joins in DBMS:

1. Inner Joins: Theta, Natural, EQUI

2. Outer Join: Left, Right, Full

Let’s see them in detail:

Inner Join
Inner Join is used to return rows from both tables which satisfy the given condition. It is
the most widely used join operation and can be considered as a default join-type

An Inner join or equijoin is a comparator-based join which uses equality comparisons in

the join-predicate. However, if you use other comparison operators like “>” it can’t be
called equijoin.

Inner Join further divided into three subtypes:

Theta join
Natural join
EQUI join

Theta Join
Theta Join allows you to merge two tables based on the condition represented by theta.
Theta joins work for all comparison operators. It is denoted by symbol θ. The general
case of JOIN operation is called a Theta join.

Syntax:

1/6
A ⋈θ B

Theta join can use any conditions in the selection criteria.

Consider the following tables.

Table A Table B

column 1 column 2 column 1 column 2

1 1 1 1

1 2 1 3

For example:

A ⋈ A.column 2 > B.column 2 (B)

A ⋈ A.column 2 > B.column 2 (B)

column 1 column 2

1 2

EQUI Join
EQUI Join is done when a Theta join uses only the equivalence condition. EQUI join is
the most difficult operation to implement efficiently in an RDBMS, and one reason why
RDBMS have essential performance problems.

For example:

A ⋈ A.column 2 = B.column 2 (B)

A ⋈ A.column 2 = B.column 2 (B)

column 1 column 2

1 1

Natural Join (⋈)

Natural Join does not utilize any of the comparison operators. In this type of join, the
attributes should have the same name and domain. In Natural Join, there should be at
least one common attribute between two relations.

It performs selection forming equality on those attributes which appear in both relations
and eliminates the duplicate attributes.

2/6
Example:
Consider the following two tables

Num Square

2 4

3 9

Num Cube

2 8

3 18

C ⋈ D

C⋈D

Num Square Cube

2 4 8

3 9 18

Outer Join
An Outer Join doesn’t require each record in the two join tables to have a matching
record. In this type of join, the table retains each record even if no other matching record
exists.

Three types of Outer Joins are:

Left Outer Join

Right Outer Join
Full Outer Join

Left Outer Join (A B)

Left Outer Join returns all the rows from the table on the left even if no matching rows
have been found in the table on the right. When no matching record is found in the table
on the right, NULL is returned.

3/6
Consider the following 2 Tables

Num Square

2 4

3 9

4 16

Num Cube

2 8

3 18

5 75

A B

A⋈B

Num Square Cube

2 4 8

3 9 18

4 16 –

Right Outer Join ( A B)

Right Outer Join returns all the columns from the table on the right even if no matching
rows have been found in the table on the left. Where no matches have been found in the
table on the left, NULL is returned. RIGHT outer JOIN is the opposite of LEFT JOIN

In our example, let’s assume that you need to get the names of members and movies
rented by them. Now we have a new member who has not rented any movie yet.

4/6
A B

A⋈B

Num Cube Square

2 8 4

3 18 9

5 75 –

Full Outer Join ( A B)

In a Full Outer Join , all tuples from both relations are included in the result, irrespective
of the matching condition.

Example:

A B

A⋈B

Num Square Cube

2 4 8

3 9 18

4 16 –

5 – 75

Summary:
There are mainly two types of joins in DBMS 1) Inner Join 2) Outer Join
An inner join is the widely used join operation and can be considered as a default
join-type.
Inner Join is further divided into three subtypes: 1) Theta join 2) Natural join 3)
EQUI join
Theta Join allows you to merge two tables based on the condition represented by
theta

5/6
When a theta join uses only equivalence condition, it becomes an equi join.
Natural join does not utilize any of the comparison operators.
An outer join doesn’t require each record in the two join tables to have a matching
record.
Outer Join is further divided into three subtypes are: 1)Left Outer Join 2) Right
Outer Join 3) Full Outer Join
The LEFT Outer Join returns all the rows from the table on the left, even if no
matching rows have been found in the table on the right.
The RIGHT Outer Join returns all the columns from the table on the right, even if no
matching rows have been found in the table on the left.
In a full outer join, all tuples from both relations are included in the result,
irrespective of the matching condition.

6/6