Aliases and Joins
Using Aliases:
An alias is a temporary name that we may give to a table or a column header. For example, we
can create alias for first_name as ‘First Name’ or just ‘f’. This benefits readability in case of
joining two tables. For example, both tables has ‘name’ field. In such case, we can use alias to
distinguish those from each other. Also, it may simplify long queries.
SQL Query Function
SELECT first_name AS "First Name", last_name Column Alias
AS "Last Name" FROM customers;
SELECT p.name, pc.name, p.price Table Alias
FROM product_categories AS pc, products AS p
WHERE p.category=pc.id
ORDER BY pc.name
SELECT p.name as Product, pc.name as Category, Use of Alias for both Table and
p.price as Price Column header. Here, p.name as
FROM product_categories AS pc, products AS p Product means p is the Alias for table
WHERE p.category=pc.id and Product is the Alias for column
ORDER BY pc.name header.
JOINS
INNER JOIN: Returns all rows when there is at least one match in BOTH tables
LEFT JOIN: Return all rows from the left table, and the matched rows from the right table
RIGHT JOIN: Return all rows from the right table, and the matched rows from the left table
FULL JOIN: Return all rows when there is a match in ONE of the tables
SELECT customers.first_name, customers.last_name, customer_addresses.city,
customer_addresses.state
FROM customer_addresses
INNER JOIN customers
ON customer_addresses.customer=customers.id
SELECT *
FROM customers
LEFT JOIN orders
ON customers.id = orders.customer
SELECT *
FROM customers
RIGHT JOIN orders
ON customers.id = orders.customer
SELECT c.first_name, c.last_name, p.name
FROM customers c
INNER JOIN orders o ON c.id = o.customer
INNER JOIN products p ON o.product = p.id
ORDER BY c.first_name
SELECT c.first_name as FirstName, c.last_name as LastName, p.name as Product
FROM customers c
INNER JOIN orders o ON c.id = o.customer
INNER JOIN products p ON o.product = p.id
ORDER BY c.first_name
