Referring to Two Tables
We can select data from two tables by referring to two tables, like this:
Example
Who has ordered a product, and what did they order?
SELECT Employees.Name, Orders.Product
FROM Employees, Orders
WHERE Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
Result
Name Product
Hansen, Ola Printer
Svendson, Stephen Table
Svendson, Stephen Chair
Example
Who ordered a printer?
SELECT Employees.Name
FROM Employees, Orders
WHERE Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
AND Orders.Product='Printer'
Result
Name
Hansen, Ola
Using Joins
OR we can select data from two tables with the JOIN keyword, like this:
Example INNER JOIN
Syntax
SELECT field1, field2, field3
FROM first_table
INNER JOIN second_table
ON first_table.keyfield = second_table.foreign_keyfield
Who has ordered a product, and what did they order?
SELECT Employees.Name, Orders.Product
FROM Employees
INNER JOIN Orders
ON Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
The INNER JOIN returns all rows from both tables where there is a match. If there are rows in
Employees that do not have matches in Orders, those rows will not be listed.
Result
Name Product
Hansen, Ola Printer
Svendson, Stephen Table
Svendson, Stephen Chair
Example LEFT JOIN
Syntax
SELECT field1, field2, field3
FROM first_table
LEFT JOIN second_table
ON first_table.keyfield = second_table.foreign_keyfield
List all employees, and their orders - if any.
SELECT Employees.Name, Orders.Product
FROM Employees
LEFT JOIN Orders
ON Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
The LEFT JOIN returns all the rows from the first table (Employees), even if there are no
matches in the second table (Orders). If there are rows in Employees that do not have matches in
Orders, those rows also will be listed.
Result
Name Product
Hansen, Ola Printer
Svendson, Tove
Svendson, Stephen Table
Svendson, Stephen Chair
Pettersen, Kari
Example RIGHT JOIN
Syntax
SELECT field1, field2, field3
FROM first_table
RIGHT JOIN second_table
ON first_table.keyfield = second_table.foreign_keyfield
List all orders, and who has ordered - if any.
SELECT Employees.Name, Orders.Product
FROM Employees
RIGHT JOIN Orders
ON Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
The RIGHT JOIN returns all the rows from the second table (Orders), even if there are no
matches in the first table (Employees). If there had been any rows in Orders that did not have
matches in Employees, those rows also would have been listed.
Result
Name Product
Hansen, Ola Printer
Svendson, Stephen Table
Svendson, Stephen Chair
Example
Who ordered a printer?
SELECT Employees.Name
FROM Employees
INNER JOIN Orders
ON Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID
WHERE Orders.Product = 'Printer'
Result
Name
Hansen, Ola
SQL UNION and UNION ALL
UNION
The UNION command is used to select related information from two tables, much like the JOIN
command. However, when using the UNION command all selected columns need to be of the
same data type.
Note: With UNION, only distinct values are selected.
SQL Statement 1
UNION
SQL Statement 2
Employees_Norway:
Employee_ID E_Name
01 Hansen, Ola
02 Svendson, Tove
03 Svendson, Stephen
04 Pettersen, Kari
Employees_USA:
Employee_ID E_Name
01 Turner, Sally
02 Kent, Clark
03 Svendson, Stephen
04 Scott, Stephen
Using the UNION Command
Example
List all different employee names in Norway and USA:
SELECT E_Name FROM Employees_Norway
UNION
SELECT E_Name FROM Employees_USA
Result
Name
Hansen, Ola
Svendson, Tove
Svendson, Stephen
Pettersen, Kari
Turner, Sally
Kent, Clark
Scott, Stephen
Note: This command cannot be used to list all employees in Norway and USA. In the example
above we have two employees with equal names, and only one of them is listed. The UNION
command only selects distinct values.
UNION ALL
The UNION ALL command is equal to the UNION command, except that UNION ALL selects
all values.
SQL Statement 1
UNION ALL
SQL Statement 2
Using the UNION ALL Command
Example
List all employees in Norway and USA:
SELECT E_Name FROM Employees_Norway
UNION ALL
SELECT E_Name FROM Employees_USA
Result
Name
Hansen, Ola
Svendson, Tove
Svendson, Stephen
Pettersen, Kari
Turner, Sally
Kent, Clark
Svendson, Stephen
Scott, Stephen
SQL Functions
SQL has a lot of built-in functions for counting and calculations.
Function Syntax
The syntax for built-in SQL functions is:
SELECT function(column) FROM table
