Left Outer Join with Partial Match
There are some subleties to outer joins involving partial matches. We have looked at joins where we want to show all the rows from the one side of a relationship. Or conversely the rows from the one side that have no matches on the many side. But what if we want to see all the rows from the one side and only a subset from the many side? For eaxmple show all my customers along with their orders for last year. Our first pass at this might be something like the query below.

But this will not work since the filter for 1999 orders effectively masks out the effect of the outer join. We don't want to filter out customers, just orders. The missing values should be replaced by nulls as is normal for outer joins.

Solution
The solution to the above is to prefilter the orders and then join the results of that to the customers using an outer join. We can prefilter the orders in a derived table or inline view using the following syntax.

Syntax

select columns
from table1
left join
(select statement) derived table alias
on table1 key = derived table key

Sample Code
Here is the actual code using the bookstore database (download from Box.net).

Results

Here is an extract of the results of running the above query, Emily Jones and Mary Collins did not place any orders in 1999 but were still listed.

Follow Up
We will expand on this concept in future additions to this post. Hopefully this post will have shown you how to work with outer joins that partially match. It also provided a look at inline views or derived tables which we will cover in more detail in other posts.

Left Outer Join

Introduction
This post shows how to create a left outer join. Outer joins are often used in reporting. It also shows how to modify the outer join to create a "find unmatched" query.

Outer Joins
When you join two tables in SOL the default join type is an inner join. This means that only rows with matching key values from each table are retrieved. For example if I join customers with their orders I will not see customer names with no orders. But it is common in reporting that you want to see all rows from the "one" side of the relationship even if there is no match. In the above example I might want to see all my customer names even if they have not placed an order yet. This is accomplished with an outer join. They come in three flavors: left, right and full.

• Left - all matched rows plus unmatched from the "left" table. Note that left refers to reading order. It means the first table mentioned in the query, the one to the "left".
• Right - all unmatched plus unmatched from the right table. The unmatched from the right table would imply they are orphan records since their foreign key did not refer to an existing parent record.
• Full- not often seen. Adds unmatched from both left and right tables. 

We will present an example of the left outer join, which is the most common, below. This example uses the bookstore database which can be downloaded from box.net.

Left Outer Join Syntax
Here is the basic syntax for a left outer join. We will assume the "one" side is the left table. Note the word outer is optional.

Select columnlist
from table1
left [outer] join table2
on table1.primarykey = table2.foreignkey;

Example
Below is an example using the bookstore database.

Results
Below is a section of the result set. Note that when there is no match the missing values are filled in as nulls by SOL. In the results below the Browns have not placed any orders.

Unmatched (Negative) Left Outer Join
Suppose you want to list all customers who have not placed an order. You can do this by creating a left outer join from the customers table to the orders table. As we have seen this will produce a list of all customers along with their orders. The list will include customers that have not placed any orders since a left join includes all rows from the left table. You can restrict the result set to only those who have not placed orders. Do this by adding a where clause to test for null order numbers. The order number is the primary key in the orders table and wouldn't be in the result set as a null unless it was generated by the left join. This is a common query to test for missing information or missing records.

Syntax
select columnlist
from table1
left [outer] join table2
on table1.primarykey = table2.foreignkey
where table2.primarykey is null;

Example

Results
Below are the results using the bookstore sample database. (In reality you might not want to show the order columns).

More to follow...
There is another type of unmatched join where there is a partial match. For example: list all customers and the titles of books they bought that were written by a certain author. Include all customers even if they did not buy any books from the given author. We will cover this in a subsequent post and in our Intermediate SOL course (SQL302 & 312).

Calculated Fields

It is a simple matter to perform calculations in a query. The result of the expression is placed in a new column in the result set. You can give the calculated field a name, too. These calculated fields are sometines called computed columns. Don't confuse them with aggregate functions which do calculations in a sense but don't create a new column in the result set.

Example
Here is a simple example from the bookstore database. (Remember that the use bookstore statement only applies to SQL Server and MySQL. Oracle and Access don't use it.)

Supplier-Parts Database SQL Script

Below is a DDL script to create Chris Date's supplier-parts database. If Chris Date can explain SQL using this simple database it is worth trying. There is another another version of this database with an additional table that I may post here eventually. A few points of interest in the DDL below:  1) in the Parts table note the use of a unique constraint at the table level to define the uniqueness of the the combination of pname, color and city, 2) in the SupplierParts table there is again a table level constraint as the primary key is the combination of pnum and snum; in the same table definition note that the foreign key references clause does not include a referenced field name because the field names are the same.

CREATE TABLE Suppliers
  (
 SNUM int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
 SNAME varchar(16) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
 STATUS int NOT NULL,
 CITY varchar(20) NOT NULL
  );

CREATE TABLE Parts
  (
 PNUM int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
 PNAME varchar(18) NOT NULL,
 COLOR varchar(10) NOT NULL,
 WEIGHT decimal(4,1) NOT NULL,
 CITY varchar(20) NOT NULL,
 UNIQUE (PNAME, COLOR, CITY)
  );

CREATE TABLE SupplierParts
  (
 SNUM int NOT NULL REFERENCES Suppliers,
 PNUM int NOT NULL REFERENCES Parts,
 QTY int NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (SNUM, PNUM)
  );

  INSERT INTO Suppliers VALUES (1, 'Smith', 20, 'London');
  INSERT INTO Suppliers VALUES (2, 'Jones', 10, 'Paris');
  INSERT INTO Suppliers VALUES (3, 'Blake', 30, 'Paris');
  INSERT INTO Suppliers VALUES (4, 'Clark', 20, 'London');
  INSERT INTO Suppliers VALUES (5, 'Adams', 30, 'Athens');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (1, 'Nut', 'Red', 12, 'London');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (2, 'Bolt', 'Green', 17, 'Paris');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (3, 'Screw', 'Blue', 17, 'Oslo');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (4, 'Screw', 'Red', 14, 'London');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (5, 'Cam', 'Blue', 12, 'Paris');
  INSERT INTO Parts VALUES (6, 'Cog', 'Red', 19, 'London');
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 1, 300);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 2, 200);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 3, 400);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 4, 200);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 5, 100);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (1, 6, 100);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (2, 1, 300);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (2, 2, 400);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (3, 2, 200);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (4, 2, 200);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (4, 4, 300);
  INSERT INTO SupplierParts VALUES (4, 5, 400);

Database scripts

Our scripts can be found at http://tinyurl.com/SQLScripts. This will take you to box.net which has the scripts we have posted to the internet. This will eventually include scripts to create and load most of the databases we uses in our classes or teaching materials.

Xeround

I finally signed up for the Xeround free cloud MySQL database. It was a fairly painless process although it seemed to take a couple of attempts to get the password to take. It uses the standard PhpMyAdmin tool for administering the database. The Xeround account page is shown below. I loaded my standard bookstore script into the PhpMyAdmin SQL window and after a few modifications was able to get the database created and loaded. I will say this is pretty handy. I am sitting in my home office accessing the database which I actually created an hour or two ago at our main office.

Below is a screenshot of the main account page.

With Cube

Background
SQL does not normally put total lines in the same result set as the detail like an accounting spreadsheet. By adding with cube to the group by clause you will get the total lines as shown below. It is similar to with rollup but subtotals each dimension. For our examples we will use a tiny fact table from the pets database. You can download the database script here. It is a tiny fact table that summarizes animals available by store. We originally obtained the table from the internet, I forget where. At some point we may add dimension tables to get a true star schema.

Notes
The result set returned by a group by with cube is a valid SQL result set. It can be filtered or manipulated like any other result set. The total line or lines returned are not the total of the groups shown. They are the totals in the table. An example below will make this clearer. A NULL is placed in the dimension column where a summary row has been inserted.

Syntax
SELECT statement...
...
GROUP BY groupbylist
WITH CUBE

Example 1
Show the animals available by store with subtotals for each store type and a grand total. In addition show the subtotals for each animal type.

Example 2
Same above but retain only rows with number available greater than 10. Note that the grand total row still shows 63 animals available.