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SQL Joins

Dr.Manjushree Nayak
Associate Professor,
School of CSE

Dr.Manjushree Nayak [1]

 Joins in Oracle
• Oracle performs a join whenever multiple tables appear in the
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query’s FROM clause.

• The query’s SELECT clause can have the columns
or
expressions from any or all of these tables.
• In order to query data from more than one table, we need to
identify common columns that relate the two tables.
• In the WHERE clause, we define the relationship between the
tables listed in the FROM clause using comparison operators.

Dr.Manjushree [2]
Nayak
 Joins
There are two syntax styles in Oracle 11g:
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a) Oracle syntax
b) ANSI syntax

Dr.Manjushree [3]
Nayak
 Simple Joins
• The most common operator used to relate two tables
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is the equality operator (=).

• If we relate two tables using an equality operator, it
is an equality join, also known as an equijoin.
• This type of join combines rows from two tables that
have equivalent values for the specified columns.

Dr.Manjushree Nayak [4]

 Equijoin
Query1:
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Find the employee number, name, department name of all the

employees.
Select empno, ename, dname
from emp, dept
where emp.deptno = dept.deptno;
• Qualifying column names avoids ambiguity and
increases
the readability of the query.
• If the same column name belongs to more than one table
each column name must be qualified (except when using
SQL ANSI syntax).

Dr.Manjushree [5]
Nayak
 Equijoin
Query2: Find the employee number, name,
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department name of all the employees those who are

working in SALES department.
Select empno, name, dname,
from emp, dept
where emp.deptno=dept.deptno and
dname=‘SALES’;

Predicate Clause

Dr.Manjushree [6]
Nayak
 Equijoin
Query3: Find the employee number, name,
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department name, department number those who are

working in the department located in Boston.
Select empno, name, dname, emp.deptno
from emp, dept
where emp.deptno=dept.deptno and
loc=‘Boston’;

Dr.Manjushree [7]
Nayak
 Equijoins
To execute a join of three or
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more tables, Oracle takes these steps:

 Oracle joins two of the tables based on the
join conditions, comparing their columns.
 Oracle joins the result to another table, based
on join conditions.
 Oracle continues this process until all tables
are joined into the result.

Dr.Manjushree [8]
Nayak
 Using Table Alias
• Like columns, tables can also have alias names.
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Specify the table alias name next to the table,

separated with a space.
So, Query3 can be written as:
Select empno, name, dname, e.deptno
from emp e, dept d
where e.deptno=d.deptno and
loc=‘Boston’;
• Table aliases increase the
readability of the query.
Dr.Manjushree [9]
Nayak
 ANSI Syntax
• The difference between traditional Oracle join syntax and
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the ANSI syntax is that in ANSI, the join type is specified

explicitly in the FROM clause.
Simple joins can have the following forms:
 <table name> NATURAL [INNER] JOIN <table name>
 <table name> [INNER] JOIN <table name>
USING
(<columns>)
 <table name> [INNER] JOIN <table name>
ON
<condition>

Dr.Manjushree [10]
Nayak
 Types of Joins
There are 6 types of Joins in ANSI syntax:
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1. Natural Join
2. Inner Join
3. LEFT Outer Join
4. RIGHT Outer Join
5. FULL Outer Join
6. Cross Join

Dr.Manjushree [11
Nayak ]
 Natural Join
• The NATURAL keyword indicates a natural join,
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where the join is based on all columns with same name

in both tables.
• It selects rows from the two tables that have
same(equal) values in the common columns.
• Syntax: tablename1 NATURAL JOIN tablename2
• In this type of join, we should not qualify the column
names with the table name or table alias name.
• When specifying NATURAL JOIN, the columns with
the same name in both tables should also have same
datatype.

Dr.Manjushree [12]
Nayak
 Natural Join
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Select * from Animal natural join fruit;

AA BB DD
200 BAT APPLE
400 RAT PEACH

Dr.Manjushree [13]
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 Select * from FOO natural join BAR;
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ACOL BCOL CCOL GCOL

101 AA 100 200

Dr.Manjushree [14]
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 Select * from foo natural join small;
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Dr.Manjushree [15]
Nayak
 Natural Join
• Find the employee number, name and their
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department name in which they are working for

all the employees.
Select empno, ename, dname from emp natural join
dept;

In this query, the common column between both the

tables is deptno and that column is used to join the
tables.

Dr.Manjushree [16]
Nayak
 NATURAL JOIN
• We cannot qualify the column names when
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using the NATURAL JOIN clause.

Select empno, ename, dname,
e.deptno from emp e natural join dept;
Select e.empno, ename, dname, e.deptno from emp
e natural join dept;
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-25155: column used in NATURAL
join cannot have qualifier

Dr.Manjushree [17]
Nayak
 INNER JOIN
JOIN..USING
• If there are many columns that have the same names in the
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tables we are joining and they do not have the same datatype,
or we want to specify the columns, we can use
JOIN..USING syntax.
Syntax: tablename1 inner join tablename2 using(columnname);
• Inner keyword is optional.
• The USING clause specifies the column names that should
be used to join the tables.
• The column names should not be qualified with a table name
or table alias.
• Columns participating in join will appear once in a result set.

Dr.Manjushree [18]
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 Join..Using
Select * from FOO inner join BAR using(ACOL);
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Dr.Manjushree [19]
Nayak
 Select * from FOO join BAR using(BCOL);
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Dr.Manjushree [20]
Nayak
 Join..Using
• Find the employee number, name, and their
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department
name in which they are working.
Select empno,ename, dname from emp join
• dept
Find the employee number, name. department number,
using(deptno);
salary those who are working in ACCOUNTING

department.
Select empno, ename, emp.deptno, sal from emp join dept
using(deptno) where dname=‘ACCOUNTING’;

Dr.Manjushree [21]
Nayak
 Join..using
• If there is no common column then specifying column name in
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the using clause will generate an error.

• WHERE clause can be used to limit the number of rows and
orderby clause to sort the rows retrieved along with any type of
join operation.

[22]
 Join..ON
• When we do not have common column names between tables
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to make a join or if we want to specify arbitrary join

conditions, we may use the JOIN ON syntax.
• We may qualify column names with a table name or alias
name.
• If the column name is common to multiple tables involved in
the query, those column names must be qualified.
• Syntax: table1 join table2 on (condition);
• Condition mentioned in ON clause will be used to join rows
from both the table.
• Condition can be equality like previous cases: equijoin. If the
condition is based on other operators it is non-equijoin
Dr.Manjushree [23]
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 Join..On
Select * from FOO join BAR on
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foo.acol=bar.acol;

Dr.Manjushree [24]
Nayak
 JOIN..ON
Select * from FOO join BAR on
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FOO.ACOL = BAR.ACOL and FOO.BCOL =

BAR.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [25]
Nayak
 Examples
• Find the employee number, name, department name, department number
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for all the employees who work in department located at “DALLAS”.

Select empno,ename, dname, e.deptno from emp e join dept d
on
e.deptno=d.deptno where d.loc=‘Dallas’;

• Find the annual salary, maximum and minimum salary of all the
employees those who are working in “Research” department.
Select sal*12 “Annual Salary”, max(sal) “Maximum”, min(sal)
“Minimum” from emp e join dept d on e.deptno=d.deptno where
d.dname=‘Research’;

Dr.Manjushree [26]
Nayak
 Examples
• Find the total number of employees working
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in department located at “New York”.

Select count(*) “Total employees” from emp e
join dept d on e.deptno=d.deptno where loc=‘New
• York’;
Find the employees those who are working
“Research” department and in whose
unknown. commission
Select empno,ename from emp e join is dept d on
e.deptno=d.deptno where dname=‘RESEARCH’ and
comm IS NULL;

Dr.Manjushree [27]
Nayak
 Outer Joins
• In natural join, we cannot retrieve all the unmatched
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data from both the tables.

• An outer join extends the result of a simple join.
• An outer join returns all rows that satisfy the join
condition and also returns some or all of those rows
from one table for which no rows from the other
satisfy the join condition.

Dr.Manjushree [28]
Nayak
 Types of Outer Join
• LEFT OUTER JOIN: For all rows in A that have
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no matching rows in B, the query returns NULL

values for the columns in B.
• RIGHT OUTER JOIN: For all rows in B that have
no matching rows in A, the query returns NULL
values for the columns in A.
• FULL OUTER JOIN: Returns all rows from both
A and B embedded with NULL for those rows
which do not satisfy the join condition.

Dr.Manjushree [29]
Nayak
 LEFT OUTER JOIN
Select * from FOO F left outer join
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BAR B on F.ACOL= B.ACOL and F.BCOL =

B.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [30]
Nayak
 Left Outer Join
Select * from FOO F left join BAR B on F.ACOL=
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B.ACOL and F.BCOL = B.BCOL;

• The keyword OUTER is optional.

Dr.Manjushree [31]
Nayak
 Left Outer Join
• Oracle Syntax:
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Select * from FOO F, BAR B where

F.ACOL = B.ACOL(+);

• Place (+) operator on the left or right side of the

conditional for right or left outer join respectively.
• In the above example, + operator is place in right
hand side of conditional operator in order to add
NULL values for non-matching records found.

Dr.Manjushree [32]
Nayak
 RIGHT OUTER JOIN
SELECT * from FOO F RIGHT OUTER JOIN BAR B on
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F.ACOL=B.ACOL and F.BCOL=B.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [33]
Nayak
 RIGHT OUTER JOIN
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SELECT * from FOO F RIGHT OUTER JOIN

BAR B on F.ACOL=B.ACOL and
F.BCOL=B.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [34]
Nayak
 RIGHT OUTER JOIN
• Oracle Syntax:
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Select * from FOO F, BAR B where F.ACOL(+) =

B.ACOL;

• In the above example, + operator is place in left

hand side of conditional operator in order to add
NULL values for non-matching records found.

Dr.Manjushree Nayak [35]

 FULL OUTER JOIN
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SELECT * from FOO F FULL OUTER

JOIN BAR B on F.ACOL=B.ACOL and
F.BCOL=B.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [36]
Nayak
 FULL OUTER JOIN
SELECT * from FOO F FULL OUTER JOIN BAR B on
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F.ACOL=B.ACOL and F.BCOL=B.BCOL;

Dr.Manjushree [37]
Nayak
 FULL OUTER JOIN
• Oracle Syntax:
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Select * from FOO F, BAR B

where F.ACOL(+) = B.ACOL(+);
• In the above example, + operator is placed on both
left and right hand side of conditional operator raises
an error.
• The full outer join can be achieved using the UNION
operator and the outer-join operator.

Dr.Manjushree [38]
Nayak
 FULL OUTER JOIN
Select * from FOO F, BAR B
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where F.ACOL = B.ACOL(+)

UNION
Select * from FOO F, BAR B
where F.ACOL(+) = B.ACOL;

Dr.Manjushree [39]
Nayak
 CROSS JOIN
• A Cartesian join occurs when data is selected from
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two or more tables and there is no common relation

specified in the WHERE clause.
• If we do not specify a join condition for the tables
listed in the FROM clause, Oracle joins each row
from the first table to every row in the second table.
• If the first table has 3 rows and the second table has
4 rows, the result will have 12 rows.
• If we add another table with 2 rows without
specifying a join condition, the result will have 24
rows.

Dr.Manjushree [40]
Nayak
 CROSS JOIN
Syntax: table1 cross join table2
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Select * from AA cross join BB;

Dr.Manjushree [41]
Nayak
 Self Join
• When a table is joined by itself it is called as self
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join.
• The table name appears in the FROM clause
twice, with different alias names.
• The two aliases are treated as two different tables,
and they are joined as we would join any other
tables, using one or more related columns.

Dr.Manjushree [42]
Nayak
 Self-Join
Find the employee name and their supervisor names.
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Select e.empno, e.ename, e.mgr, s.empno, s.ename

from emp e join emp s
on e.mgr=s.empno;

Dr.Manjushree [43]
Nayak
 Self Join
Select e.empno, e.ename, e.mgr, s.empno, s.ename
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from emp e left join emp s

on e.mgr=s.empno;

Dr.Manjushree [44]
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