Should SQL Server yield the same results for both of the queries below? The primary difference is the condition being placed in the WHERE clause with the former, and with the latter being placed as a condition upon the join itself.
SELECT *
FROM cars c
INNER JOIN parts p
ON c.CarID = p.CarID
WHERE p.Desc LIKE '%muffler%'
SELECT *
FROM cars c
INNER JOIN parts p
ON c.CarID = p.CarID
AND p.Desc LIKE '%muffler%'
Thanks in advance for any help that I receive upon this!
For INNER JOINS it will make no difference to semantics or performance. Both will give the same plan. For OUTER JOINs it does make a difference though.
/*Will return all rows from cars*/
SELECT c.*
FROM cars c
LEFT JOIN parts p
ON c.CarID = p.CarID AND c.CarID <> c.CarID
/*Will return no rows*/
SELECT c.*
FROM cars c
LEFT JOIN parts p
ON c.CarID = p.CarID
WHERE c.CarID <> c.CarID
For inner joins the only issue is clarity. The JOIN condition should (IMO) only contain predicates concerned with how the two tables in the JOIN are related. Other unrelated filters should go in the WHERE clause.
For inner joins the two queries should yield exactly the same results. Are you seeing a difference?
Yes, they both get the same results. The difference is when the condition is checked, if during the join or afterwards.
The execution plan will be identical in your example. Next to the parse button should be the "Show execution plan" button. It will give you a clearer picture.
I think in a more complex query with many joins it can be an issue in efficiency, as stated above, before or after.
EDIT: sorry assuming your using sql server management studio.
My recommendation for this kind of situation would be:
put the JOIN condition (what establishes the "link" between the two tables) - and only that JOIN condition - after the JOIN operator
any additional conditions for one of the two joined tables belongs in the regular WHERE clause
So based on that, I would always recommend to write your query this way:
SELECT
(list of columns)
FROM
dbo.cars c
INNER JOIN
dbo.parts p ON c.CarID = p.CarID
WHERE
p.Desc LIKE 'muffler%'
It seem "cleaner" and more expressive that way - don't "hide" additional conditions behind a JOIN clause if they don't really belong there (e.g. help establish the link between the two tables being joined).
Related
Apology in advance for a long question, but doing this just for the sake of learning:
i'm new to SQL and researching on JOIN for now. I'm getting two different behaviors when using INNER and OUTER JOIN. What I know is, INNER JOIN gives an intersection kind of result while returning only common rows among tables, and (LEFT/RIGHT) OUTER JOIN is outputting what is common and remaining rows in LEFT or RIGHT tables, depending upon LEFT/RIGHT clause respectively.
While working with MS Training Kit and trying to solve this practice: "Practice 2: In this practice, you identify rows that appear in one table but have no matches in another. You are given a task to return the IDs of employees from the HR.Employees table who did not handle orders (in the Sales.Orders table) on February 12, 2008. Write three different solutions using the following: joins, subqueries, and set
operators. To verify the validity of your solution, you are supposed to return employeeIDs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9."
I'm successful doing this with subqueries and set operators but with JOIN is returning something not expected. I've written the following query:
USE TSQL2012;
SELECT
E.empid
FROM
HR.Employees AS H
JOIN Sales.Orders AS O
ON H.empid = O.empid
AND O.orderdate = '20080212'
JOIN HR.Employees AS E
ON E.empid <> H.empid
ORDER BY
E.empid
;
I'm expecting results as: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9 (6 rows)
But what i'm getting is: 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6,6,7,7,7,8,8,9,9,9 (24 rows)
I tried some videos but could not understand this side of INNER/OUTER JOIN. I'll be grateful if someone could help this side of JOIN, why is it so and what should I try to understand while working with JOIN.
you can also use left outer join to get not matching
*** The LEFT JOIN keyword returns all rows from the left table (table1), with the matching rows in the right table (table2). The result is NULL in the right side when there is no match.
SELECT
H.empid
FROM
HR.Employees AS H
LEFT OUTER JOIN Sales.Orders AS O
ON H.empid = O.empid
AND O.orderdate = '20080212'
WHERE O.empid IS NULL
Above script will return emp id who did not handle orders on specify date
here you can see all kind of join
Diagram taken from: http://dsin.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/sql-join-cheat-sheet/
adjust your query to be like this
USE TSQL2012;
SELECT
E.empid
FROM
HR.Employees AS H
JOIN Sales.Orders AS O
ON H.empid = O.empid
where O.orderdate = '2008-02-12' AND O.empid IN null
ORDER BY
E.empid
;
USE TSQL2012;
SELECT
distinct E.empid
FROM
HR.Employees AS H
JOIN Sales.Orders AS O
ON H.empid = O.empid
AND O.orderdate = '20080212'
JOIN HR.Employees AS E
ON E.empid <> H.empid
ORDER BY
E.empid
;
Primary things to always remind yourself when working with SQL JOINs:
INNER JOINs require a match in the join in order for result set rows produced prior to the INNER JOIN to remain in the result set. When no match is found for a row, the row is discarded from the result set.
For a row fed to an INNER JOIN that matches to ONLY one row, only one copy of that row fed to the result set is delivered.
For a row fed to an INNER JOIN that matches to multiple rows, the row will be delivered multiple times, once for each row match from the INNER JOIN table.
OUTER JOINs will not discard rows fed to them in the result set, whether or not the OUTER JOIN results in a match or not.
Just like INNER JOINs, if an OUTER JOIN matches to more than one row, it will increase the number of rows in the result set by duplicating rows equal to the number of rows matched from the OUTER JOIN table.
Ask yourself "if I get NO match on the JOIN, do I want the row discarded or not?" If the answer is NO, use an OUTER JOIN. If the answer is YES, use an INNER JOIN.
If you don't need to reference any of the columns from a JOIN table, don't perform a JOIN at all. Instead, use a WHERE EXISTS, WHERE NOT EXISTS, WHERE IN, WHERE NOT IN, etc. or similar, depending on your database engine in use. Don't rely on the database engine to be smart enough to discard unreferenced columns resulting from JOINs from the result set. Some databases may be smart enough to do that, some not. There's no reason to pull columns into a result set only to not reference them. Doing so increases chance of reduced performance.
Your JOIN of:
JOIN HR.Employees AS E
ON E.empid <> H.empid
...is matching to all Employees rows with a DIFFERENT EMPID to all rows fed to that join. Use of NOT EQUAL on an INNER JOIN is a very rare thing to do or need, especially if the JOIN predicate is testing only ONE condition. That is why your getting duplicate rows in the result set.
On DB2, we could perform an EXCEPTION JOIN to accomplish that using a JOIN alone. Normally, on DB2, I would use a WHERE NOT EXISTS for that. On SQL Server you could do a JOIN to a query where the query set is all employees without orders in SALES.ORDERS on the specified date, but I don't know if that violates the rules of your tutorial.
Naveen posted the solution it appears your tutorial is looking for!
I want to join two tables together and add additional information from two other tables to the same columns in both queried tables. I've come up with the below code, which works, but I don't feel comfortable about having to add another JOIN clause for each table, as it would make the query substantially long if I wanted to join/add more things.
Is there a way to combine it, so that I can join additional tables only once (just use S and E aliases every time)?
SELECT
J.JobId,
J.StandardJobId,
S.JobName,
J.EngineerId,
E.EngineerName,
JF.JobId AS FollowUpJobId,
JF.StandardJobId AS FollowUpStandardJobId,
SF.JobName AS FollowUpJobName,
JF.EngineerId AS FollowUpEngineerId,
EF.EngineerName AS FollowUpEngineerName
FROM
Jobs J
INNER JOIN
Jobs JF
ON
J.FollowUpJobId = JF.JobId
INNER JOIN
StandardJobs S
ON
J.StandardJobId = S.StandardJobId
INNER JOIN
Engineers E
ON
E.EngineerId = J.EngineerId
INNER JOIN
StandardJobs SF
ON
SF.StandardJobId = JF.StandardJobId
INNER JOIN
Engineers EF
ON
EF.EngineerId = JF.EngineerId
One approach would be to use a Common Table Expression (CTE) - something like:
with cte as
(SELECT J.JobId,
J.StandardJobId,
S.JobName,
J.EngineerId,
E.EngineerName,
J.FollowUpJobId
FROM Jobs J
INNER JOIN StandardJobs S ON J.StandardJobId = S.StandardJobId
INNER JOIN Engineers E ON E.EngineerId = J.EngineerId)
SELECT O.*,
F.StandardJobId AS FollowUpStandardJobId,
F.JobName AS FollowUpJobName,
F.EngineerId AS FollowUpEngineerId,
F.EngineerName AS FollowUpEngineerName
FROM CTE AS O
JOIN CTE AS F ON O.FollowUpJobId = F.JobId
You can sort of do this with either a CTE (Common Table Expressions, the WITH clause) or a View:
;WITH Jobs_Extended As
(
SELECT j.*,
s.JobName,
E.EngineerName
FROM Jobs As j
JOIN StandardJobs As s ON s.StandardJobId = j.StandardJobId
JOIN Engineer As e ON e.EngineerId = j.EngineerId
)
SELECT
J.JobId,
J.StandardJobId,
J.JobName,
J.EngineerId,
J.EngineerName,
JF.JobId AS FollowUpJobId,
JF.StandardJobId AS FollowUpStandardJobId,
JF.JobName AS FollowUpJobName,
JF.EngineerId AS FollowUpEngineerId,
JF.EngineerName AS FollowUpEngineerName
FROM Jobs_Extended J
JOIN Jobs_Extended JF ON J.FollowUpJobId = JF.JobId
In this example the CTE Jobs_Extended becomes a defined alias for the relationship between the Jobs, Engineers and StandardJobs tables. Then once defined, you can use it multiple times in the query without having to redefine those interior relations.
You can do the same thing by change the WITH to a View, which will make the defined alias permannet in your database.
No, you cannot avoid JOINing related tables each time a separate reference is needed. The issue is that you are not working with the tables in a general sense but instead working with the specific rows of each table, even more specifically, just those rows that match the JOIN and WHERE conditions.
There is no way to specify the references to either StandardJobs or Engineers only once because you are needing to work with two rows from each table at the same time, at least in the given example.
However, depending on which direction you are wanting to go with "additional tables" (more references to Jobs or more lookups like StandardJobs and Engineers for the given 2 references of Jobs), the CTE construct shown by Mark is the probably the easiest / best way to abstract it. I posted this answer mainly to explain the issue at hand.
Here is the query
select *
FROM
WEBSS.P0022_INVENTORY_ACTIVITY_LOG I LEFT OUTER JOIN WEBSS.P0029_LOCATION L2 ON I.INVT_XFER_LOC_ID = L2.LOC_ID,
WEBSS.P0029_LOCATION L
WHERE
I.LOC_ID = L.LOC_ID
UNION ALL
select *
FROM
WEBSS.P0022_INVENTORY_ACTIVITY_LOG I LEFT OUTER JOIN WEBSS.P0029_LOCATION L2 ON I.LOC_ID = L2.LOC_ID,
WEBSS.P0029_LOCATION L
WHERE
I.INVT_XFER_LOC_ID = L.LOC_ID;
Can you plz tell me hw can i use the second query in effective manner.
When you look at the query u can find there is a small change in the condition.. so for that do we really need to go for two queries nwith union all..
I need to tune the second query ie..any possible way to rewrite the second query to make good performance.. any help on this?
Thanks in advance.
I am not an expert in db2, but sql statements are generally the same
UNION ALL returns also duplicates
use only Union in order not to return duplicates
if you do not add "()" in the union it will be completed it will do the unions in the order you write them http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms180026.aspx
why do you select from WEBSS.P0029_LOCATION L and not use also a left join? I would use two left joins and is it
First Query:
Select * from table1 inner join table2 on table1.Id = table2.Id
Second Query:
Select * from table1, table2 where table1.Id = table2.Id
What is difference between these query regarding performance which should one use?
The two statements you posted are logically identical. There isn't really a
practical reason to prefer one over the other, it's largely a matter of
personal style and readability. Some people prefer the INNER JOIN syntax and
some prefer just to use WHERE.
Refering to Using Inner Joins:
In the ISO standard, inner joins can
be specified in either the FROM or
WHERE clause. This is the only type of
join that ISO supports in the WHERE
clause. Inner joins specified in the
WHERE clause are known as old-style
inner joins.
Refering to Join Fundamentals:
Specifying the join conditions in the
FROM clause helps separate them from
any other search conditions that may
be specified in a WHERE clause, and is
the recommended method for specifying
joins.
Personaly, I prefer using INNER JOIN. I find it much clearer, as I can separate the join conditions from the filter conditions and using a seperate join block for each joined table.
To amplify #Akram's answer - many people prefer the inner join syntax, since it then allows you to more easily distinguish between the join conditions (how the various tables in the FROM clause relate to each other) from the filter conditions (those conditions that should be used to reduce the overall result set. There's no difference between them in this circumstance, but on larger queries, with more tables, it may improve readability to use the inner join form.
In addition, once you start considering outer joins, you pretty well need to use the infix join syntax (left outer join,right outer join), so many find a form of symmetry in using the same style for inner join. There is an older deprecated syntax for performing outer joins in the WHERE clause (using *=), but support for such joins is dying out.
I have a fairly conventional set of order entry tables divided by:
Orders
OrdersRows
OrdersRowsOptions
The record in OrderRowOptions is not created unless needed. When I create a set of joins like
select * from orders o
inner join OrdersRows r on r.idOrder = o.idOrder
inner join ordersrowsoptions ro on ro.idOrderRow = r.idOrderRow
where r.idProduct = [foo]
My full resultset is blank if no ordersrowsoptions records exist for the given product.
what's the correct syntax to return records even if no records exist at one of the join clauses?
thx
select * from orders o
inner join OrdersRows r on r.idOrder = o.idOrder
left join ordersrowsoptions ro on ro.idOrderRow = r.idOrderRow
where r.idProduct = [foo]
Of course you should not use select * in any query but especially never when doing a join. The repeated fields are just wasting server and network resources.
Since you seem unfamiliar with left joins, you probably also need to understand the concepts in this:
http://wiki.lessthandot.com/index.php/WHERE_conditions_on_a_LEFT_JOIN
LEFT JOIN / RIGHT JOIN.
Edit: yes, the following answer, given earlier, is correct:
select * from orders o
inner join OrdersRows r on r.idOrder = o.idOrder
left join ordersrowsoptions ro on ro.idOrderRow = r.idOrderRow
where r.idProduct = [foo]
LEFT JOIN (or RIGHT JOIN) are probably what you are looking for, depending on which side of the join no rows may appear.
Interesting, do you want to get all orders that have that product in them? The other post is correct that you have to use LEFT or RIGHT OUTER JOINS. But if you want to get entire orders that have that product then you'd need a more complex where clause.