GET DATA FROM MULTIPLE TABLES

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Displaying Data from Multiple Tables

The related tables of a large database are linked through the use of foreign and primary keys or
what are often referred to as common columns. The ability to join tables will enable you to add
more meaning to the result table that is produced. For 'n' number tables to be joined in a query,
minimum n − 1 join conditions are necessary. Based on the join conditions, Oracle combines the
matching pair of rows and displays the one which satisfies the join condition.

Joins are classified as below

Natural join alsoknownasanequijoinorasimplejoin - Creates a join by using a commonly named and

defined column.

Non-equality join - Joins tables when there are no equivalent rows in the tables to be joined-
for example, to match values in one column of a table with a range of values in another
table.

Self-join - Joins a table to itself.

Outer join - Includes records of a table in output when there's no matching record in the
other table.

Cartesian join alsoknownasaCartesianproductorcrossjoin - Replicates each row from the first table
with every row from the second table.Creates a join between tables by displaying every
possible record combination.

Natural Join
The NATURAL keyword can simplify the syntax of an equijoin.A NATURAL JOIN is possible whenever
two ormore tables have columns with the same name,and the columns are join compatible, i.e., the
columns have a shared domain of values.The join operation joins rows from the tables that have
equal column values for the same named columns.

Consider the one-to-many relationship between the DEPARTMENTS and EMPLOYEES tables.Each
table has a column named DEPARTMENT_ID.This column is the primary key of the DEPARTMENTS
table and a foreign key of the EMPLOYEES table.

SELECT E.first_name NAME,D.department_name DNAME

FROM employees E NATURAL JOIN departments D;

FIRST_NAME DNAME
---------- ------
MILLER DEPT 1
JOHN DEPT 1
MARTIN DEPT 2
EDWIN DEPT 2

The below SELECT query joins the two tables by explicitly specifying the join condition with the ON
keyword.

SELECT E.first_name NAME,D.department_name DNAME

FROM employees E JOIN departments D
ON (E.department_id = D.department_id);

There are some limitations regarding the NATURAL JOIN.You cannot specify a LOB column with a
NATURAL JOIN.Also, columns involved in the join cannot be qualified by a table name or alias.

USING Clause
Using Natural joins, Oracle implicitly identify columns to form the basis of join. Many situations
require explicit declaration of join conditions. In such cases, we use USING clause to specify the
joining criteria. Since, USING clause joins the tables based on equality of columns, it is also known
as Equijoin. They are also known as Inner joins or simple joins.

Syntax:

SELECT <column list>

FROM TABLE1 JOIN TABLE2
USING (column name)

Consider the below SELECT query, EMPLOYEES table and DEPARTMENTS table are joined using the
common column DEPARTMENT_ID.

SELECT E.first_name NAME,D.department_name DNAME

FROM employees E JOIN departments D
USING (department_id);

Self Join
A SELF-JOIN operation produces a result table when the relationship of interest exists among rows
that are stored within a single table. In other words, when a table is joined to itself, the join is
known as Self Join.

Consider EMPLOYEES table,which contains employee and their reporting managers.To find
manager's name for an employee would require a join on the EMP table itself. This is a typical
candidate for Self Join.

SELECT e1.FirstName Manager,e2.FirstName Employee

FROM employees e1 JOIN employees e2
ON (e1.employee_id = e2.manager_id)
ORDER BY e2.manager_id DESC;

Non Equijoins
A non-equality join is used when the related columns can't be joined with an equal sign-meaning
there are no equivalent rows in the tables to be joined.A non-equality join enables you to store a
range's minimum value in one column of a record and the maximum value in another column. So
instead of finding a column-tocolumn match, you can use a non-equality join to determine whether
the item being shipped falls between minimum and maximum ranges in the columns.If the join
does find a matching range for the item, the corresponding shipping fee can be returned in the
results. As with the traditional method of equality joins, a non-equality join can be performed in a
WHERE clause. In addition, the JOIN keyword can be used with the ON clause to specify relevant
columns for the join.

SELECT E.first_name,
J.job_hisal,
J.job_losal,
E.salary
FROM employees E JOIN job_sal J
ON (E.salary BETWEEN J.job_losal AND J.job_losal);

We can make use all comparison parameter discussed earlier like equality and inequality
operators, BETWEEN, IS NULL, IS NOT NULL, and RELATIONAL.

Outer Joins
An Outer Join is used to identify situations where rows in one table do not match rows in a second
table, even though the two tables are related.

There are three types of outer joins: the LEFT, RIGHT, and FULL OUTER JOIN. They all begin with an
INNER JOIN, and then they add back some of the rows that have been dropped. A LEFT OUTER JOIN
adds back all the rows that are dropped from the first left table in the join condition, and output
columns from the second right table are set to NULL. A RIGHT OUTER JOIN adds back all the rows
that are dropped from the second right table in the join condition, and output columns from the first
left table are set to NULL. The FULL OUTER JOIN adds back all the rows that are dropped from both
the tables.

Right Outer Join

A RIGHT OUTER JOIN adds back all the rows that are dropped from the second right table in the join
condition, and output columns from the first left table are set to NULL. Note the below query lists the
employees and their corresponding departments. Also no employee has been assigned to
department 30.

SELECT E.first_name, E.salary, D.department_id

FROM employees E, departments D
WHERE E.DEPARTMENT_ID (+) = D.DEPARTMENT_ID;

FIRST_NAME SALARY DEPARTMENT_ID

---------- ---------- ----------
JOHN 6000 10
EDWIN 2000 20
MILLER 2500 10
MARTIN 4000 20
30

Left Outer Join

A LEFT OUTER JOIN adds back all the rows that are dropped from the first left table in the join
condition, and output columns from the second right table are set to NULL. The query demonstrated
above can be used to demonstrate left outer join, by exchanging the position of + sign.

SELECT E.first_name, E.salary, D.department_id

FROM employees E, departments D
WHERE D.DEPARTMENT_ID = E.DEPARTMENT_ID (+);

FIRST_NAME SALARY DEPARTMENT_ID

---------- ---------- ----------
JOHN 6000 10
EDWIN 2000 20
MILLER 2500 10
MARTIN 4000 20
30

Full Outer Join

The FULL OUTER JOIN adds back all the rows that are dropped from both the tables. Below query
shows lists the employees and their departments. Note that employee 'MAN' has not been assigned
any department till now itsNULL and department 30 is not assigned to any employee.

SELECT nvl (e.first_name,'-') first_name, nvl (to_char (d.department_id),'-')

department_id
FROM employee e FULL OUTER JOIN department d
ON e. depARTMENT_ID = d. depARTMENT_ID;

FIRST_NAME DEPARTMENT_ID
---------- --------------------
MAN -
JOHN 10
EDWIN 20
MILLER 10
MARTIN 20
- 30

6 rows selected.

Cartesian product or Cross join

For two entities A and B, A * B is known as Cartesian product. A Cartesian product consists of all
possible combinations of the rows from each of the tables. Therefore, when a table with 10 rows is
joined with a table with 20 rows, the Cartesian product is 200 rows 10 ∗ 20 = 200.For example, joining
the employee table with eight rows and the department table with three rows will produce a
Cartesian product table of 24 rows 8 ∗ 3 = 24.

Cross join refers to the Cartesian product of two tables. It produces cross product of two tables. The
above query can be written using CROSS JOIN clause.

A Cartesian product result table is normally not very useful. In fact, such a result table can be
terribly misleading. If you execute the below query for the EMPLOYEES and DEPARTMENTS tables,
the result table implies that every employee has a relationship with every department, and we
know that this is simply not the case!

SELECT E.first_name, D.DNAME

FROM employees E,departments D;

Cross join can be written as,

SELECT E.first_name, D.DNAME
FROM employees E CROSS JOIN departments D;
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