Joins

1. Inner Join

2. Outer Join

o Left Outer Join

o Right Outer Join

o Full Outer Join

3. Cross Join

Joins in SQL Server allows the retrieval of data records from one or more tables having some relation
between them. Logical operators can also be used to drill down the number of records to get the
desired output from sql join queries.

Inner Join: Inner Join is a default type join of SQL Server. It uses logical operators such as =, <, > to
match the records in two tables. Inner Join includes equi join and natural joins.

Examples:

SQL Inner Join Examples

Equi Join: Equi Join returns all the columns from both tables and filters the records satisfying the
matching condition specified in Join “ON” statement of sql inner join query.
SQL Inner Equi Join Example:
USE NORTHWIND
SELECT * FROM CATEGORIES C INNER JOIN
PRODUCTS P ON P.CATEGORYID = C.CATEGORYID

Result will display the following columns:

CategoryID, CategoryName, Description, Picture, ProductID, ProductName, SupplierID, CategoryID,
QuantityPerUnit, UnitPrice, UnitsInStock, UnitsOnOrder, ReorderLevel, Discontinued

Above equi join sql query will display the categoryId two times in a row because both the tables have
categoryId column. You can convert the result into natural join by elimination the identical columns
and unnecessary columns.

In the previous article you learnt how to use equi inner join in sql queries to join two tables and
retrieve the combined result of both sql database tables. See the example of equi join here… SQL
Inner Equi Join Examples. Notice that equi join sql query returned the categoryId column twice
because of relation between two tables. Products table also has categoryId column that shows the
product belongs to a particular category in categories whose categoryId is also saved in products table
as a relational key between both the tables.
Natural join query example:

SELECT C.*, P.PRODUCTID, P.PRODUCTNAME FROM CATEGORIES C

INNER JOIN
PRODUCTS P ON P.CATEGORYID = C.CATEGORYID

This natural join query will return all the columns of categories table and prodcutId and productName
from products table.

You can further modify this natural inner join query as per your requirements to visualize the data by
specifying the column names of categories table also.

Inner Join Query Example by specifying column names:

SELECT C.CATEGORYID, C.CATEGORYNAME, P.PRODUCTID, P.PRODUCTNAME, P.UNITPRICE FROM

CATEGORIES C INNER JOIN
PRODUCTS P ON P.CATEGORYID = C.CATEGORYID

This inner join query will display only the specified column names of both the tables.

Equi Join (Inner Join) for combining the columns of two sql database tables into single table output
result. Try sql inner equi join examples.

Natural Join (Inner Join) for getting the output of equi join into the specified columns format and
removing the ambiguous column names from the output. See sql inner natural join examples.

SQL Inner Join query with (=) operator:

SELECT C.CATEGORYID, C.CATEGORYNAME, P.PRODUCTID, P.PRODUCTNAME, P.UNITPRICE

FROM CATEGORIES C INNER JOIN
PRODUCTS P ON P.CATEGORYID = C.CATEGORYID
WHERE P.UNITPRICE = 10
ORDER BY C.CATEGORYNAME, P.PRODUCTNAME
This inner join query will return the categoryid, categoryname, productid, productname, unitprice
where product unit price = 10

SQL Inner Join Query with (>) operator:

SELECT DISTINCT C.CATEGORYID, C.CATEGORYNAME

FROM CATEGORIES C INNER JOIN
PRODUCTS P ON C.CATEGORYID > P.CATEGORYID
WHERE P.UNITPRICE = 10
ORDER BY C.CATEGORYNAME

This inner join query will return the categoryId, categoryName having products with unit price=10

SQL Inner Join Query with not equal (<>) operator:

SELECT DISTINCT P1.PRODUCTNAME, P1.UNITPRICE, P1.SUPPLIERID

FROM PRODUCTS P1 INNER JOIN PRODUCTS P2
ON
P1.SUPPLIERID=P2.SUPPLIERID
AND P1.UNITPRICE<>P2.UNITPRICE
WHERE P1.UNITPRICE < 20 AND P2.UNITPRICE < 20
ORDER BY P1.SUPPLIERID

Inner Join with not equal operator is rarely used in self joins. As an example above sql self join query
returns the productname, unitprice, supplierid where suppliers having 2 or more than 2 products with
unit price less than 20.

Outer Join: Outer Join has further 3 sub categories as left, right and full. Outer Join uses these
category names as keywords that can be specified in the FROM clause.

o Left Outer Join: Left Outer Join returns all the rows from the table specified first in
the Left Outer Join Clause. If in the left table any row has no matching record in the
right side table then that row returns null column values for that particular tuple.

Examples:
Inner joins return only those rows from both sql database tables having matching records in both
the tables whereas left outer join returns all the rows from the left table and related matching
records from the other one.

SQL Left Outer Join Example:

USE PUBS

SELECT A.AU_FNAME, A.AU_LNAME, P.PUB_NAME

FROM AUTHORS A LEFT OUTER JOIN PUBLISHERS P
ON A.CITY = P.CITY
ORDER BY A.AU_LNAME, A.AU_FNAME

Result:

au_fname au_lname pub_name

Abraham Bennet Algodata Infosystems
Blotchet-
Reginald Halls NULL
Cheryl Carson Algodata Infosystems
Michel DeFrance NULL
Innes del Castillo NULL
Ann Dull NULL
Marjorie Green NULL
Morningstar Greene NULL
Burt Gringlesby NULL
Sheryl Hunter NULL
Livia Karsen NULL
Charlene Locksley NULL
Stearns MacFeather NULL
Heather McBadden NULL
Michael O'Leary NULL
Sylvia Panteley NULL
Albert Ringer NULL
Anne Ringer NULL
Meander Smith NULL
Dean Straight NULL
Dirk Stringer NULL
Johnson White NULL
Akiko Yokomoto NULL

This left outer join query retrieves the author names and publisher name having same cities. Here
all rows retrieved from the left table i.e. authors and publisher name having the similar city other
columns of pub_name column are null due to no match found in the right table.

o Right Outer Join: Right Outer Join is exactly the reverse method of Left Outer Join.
It returns all the rows from right table and returns null values for the rows having no
match in the left joined table.

Examples:
SQL Right Outer Join Examples
In the previous article regarding sql left outer join we learnt left outer join that retrieves all the
results from left table and related matches from the right table where right table having no matches
displays the Null value in the corresponding columns. Consider the same example of authors and
publishers table of the existing database PUBS of sql server 2000.

We used the following left outer join query:

SELECT A.AU_FNAME, A.AU_LNAME, P.PUB_NAME

FROM AUTHORS A LEFT OUTER JOIN PUBLISHERS P
ON A.CITY = P.CITY
ORDER BY A.AU_LNAME, A.AU_FNAME

Just change the left keyword to right outer join in above example; you will get the reverse output of
left outer join in the form of right outer join.

SQL Right Outer Join query Example:

SELECT A.AU_FNAME, A.AU_LNAME, P.PUB_NAME

FROM AUTHORS A RIGHT OUTER JOIN PUBLISHERS P
ON A.CITY = P.CITY
ORDER BY A.AU_LNAME, A.AU_FNAME

Result:

au_fname au_lname pub_name

NULL NULL New Moon Books
NULL NULL Binnet & Hardley
NULL NULL Five Lakes Publishing
NULL NULL Ramona Publishers
NULL NULL GGG&G
NULL NULL Scootney Books
NULL NULL Lucerne Publishing
Abraham Bennet Algodata Infosystems
Cheryl Carson Algodata Infosystems

Notice the difference in the output of right outer join and left outer join. Right outer join returned
all the rows from right table as all publisher names and null values for the left table columns having no
match found in left table’s au_fname and au_lname.

Full Outer Join: Full outer join returns all the rows from both left and right joined tables. If there is
any match missing from the left table then it returns null column values for left side table and if there
is any match missing from right table then it returns null value columns for the right side table.

Examples:

SQL Full Outer Join Examples

To retrieve all the records from left as well as right table unless the records have matching relations in
each row you can use SQL FULL OUTER JOIN.

You can consider the examples of last two articles about left outer join and right outer join, in
which left outer join retrieves all records from the left table and as all records of right table in right
outer join along with null values for the columns having no matching records in any tuple. To retain all
the records of left as well as right table along with null values for non matching rows displaying the
combination of results of left outer and right outer join, FULL OUTER JOIN is the best solution.

SQL FULL outer join example:

SELECT A.AU_FNAME, A.AU_LNAME, P.PUB_NAME

FROM AUTHORS A FULL OUTER JOIN PUBLISHERS P
ON A.CITY = P.CITY
ORDER BY A.AU_LNAME, A.AU_FNAME

Result:

au_fname au_lname pub_name

NULL NULL Binnet & Hardley
NULL NULL Five Lakes Publishing
NULL NULL New Moon Books
NULL NULL Lucerne Publishing
NULL NULL Scootney Books
NULL NULL Ramona Publishers
NULL NULL GGG&G
Abraham Bennet Algodata Infosystems
Reginald Blotchet-Halls NULL
Cheryl Carson Algodata Infosystems
Michel DeFrance NULL
Innes del Castillo NULL
Ann Dull NULL
Marjorie Green NULL
Morningstar Greene NULL
Burt Gringlesby NULL
Sheryl Hunter NULL
Livia Karsen NULL
Charlene Locksley NULL
Stearns MacFeather NULL
Heather McBadden NULL
Michael O'Leary NULL
Sylvia Panteley NULL
Albert Ringer NULL
Anne Ringer NULL
Meander Smith NULL
Dean Straight NULL
Dirk Stringer NULL
Johnson White NULL
Akiko Yokomoto NULL

Above output retrieved from the sql full outer join query is the exact combination of both the left as
well as right join outputs.
Cross Join: Cross join works as a Cartesian product of rows for both left and right table. It combined
each row of left table with all the rows of right table.
SQL Cross join returns the output result as a Cartesian product of both database tables.

Let left table has 10 rows and right table has 8 rows then SQL CROSS Join will return 180 rows
combining each record of left table with all records of right side table. Consider the following example
of CROSS Join:

USE PUBS
SELECT AU_FNAME, AU_LNAME, PUB_NAME
FROM AUTHORS CROSS JOIN PUBLISHERS
ORDER BY AU_FNAME

Above cross join will return 23 * 8 = 184 results by multiplying each row of authors table with
publishers table.

SQL CROSS Join with WHERE clause

By just adding the where clause with Cross join sql query it turns the output result into inner join.

Example:

USE PUBS

SELECT AU_FNAME, AU_LNAME, PUB_NAME

FROM AUTHORS CROSS JOIN PUBLISHERS
WHERE AUTHORS.CITY = PUBLISHERS.CITY
ORDER BY AU_FNAME

It will display only the matching results in both tables.

Result:
au_fname au_lname pub_name
Cheryl Carson Algodata Infosystems
Abraham Bennet Algodata Infosystems

Self Join

For self join in sql you can try the following example:

Create table employees:

emp_id emp_name emp_manager_id

1 John Null
2 Tom 1
3 Smith 1
4 Albert 2
5 David 2
6 Murphy 5
7 Petra 5

Now to get the names of managers from the above single table you can use sub queries or simply the
self join.

Self Join SQL Query to get the names of manager and employees:

select e1.emp_name 'manager',e2.emp_name 'employee'

from employees e1 join employees e2
on e1.emp_id=e2.emp_manager_id

Result:

manager employee
John Tom
John Smith
Tom Albert
Tom David
David Murphy
David Petra

Understanding the Self Join Example

In the above self join query, employees table is joined with itself using table aliases e1 and e2.
This creates the two views of a single table.

from employees e1 join employees e2 on e1.emp_id=e2.emp_manager_id

Here e.emp_manager_id passes the manager id from the 2nd view to the first aliased e1 table to get
the names of managers.

select * from authors

select au_id,au_lname,city from authors

INSERT INTO authors

(au_id,au_lname,au_fname,phone,address,city,state,zip,contractpup)

VALUES (005,'FirstCol', 'SecondCol','999999999','','','tn','60001',1)

select * from authors where au_lname like '%First%'

select * from authors where city ='oakland' and state='CA'

select * from authors where city ='oakland' and state='CA' and zip='94609'
select * from authors where city ='oakland' or state='CA' or zip='94609' order by
city desc

SELECT state , COUNT(au_id) As total FROM authors WHERE state IN('UT', 'CA')
GROUP BY state

UPDATE authors SET state = 'TN',city='Chennai' WHERE zip = '60001'

select * from authors where state='tn'