Re: Newbie LEFT JOIN question

First, I apologize - I'm new to this, grateful for the list and just confused. I didn't mean to post improperly. Second, thanks so much Rory for simplifying it and answering that anyway. I promise I wasn't going for technical impressiveness and easier is definitely better! Thanks again, Jack On 9 Mar 2005, at 02:19, Rory McKinley wrote:

Jackson Linux wrote:

Hi, all, I have three tables; 'cv', the main table, 'jobcat', a definition table and 'cvjobcats', an intersection table (for more detail see PS below). I'd like to join this all together to be able to make a headline consisting of the plain English description of the job category followed by all rows within cv which contain a reference to that job category I can follow this only to a point and that is where I ask for the List's help - does this even resemble the beginnings of what I want to accomplish? I've tried to comment as I go for my own sanity //Select columns from 'cv', whose 'category' references numbers //Select 'category' from 'jobcat' to translate the numbers to English "SELECT cv.cv_id,

     cv.category,
    dates,
    cv.job_title,
    cv.company,
    cv.job,
     jobcat.category

FROM cv LEFT JOIN cvjobcats ON cvjobcats.cv=cv.cv_id //Let tables cv and jobcat understand each other. //This next bit I'm confused about LEFT JOIN jobcat ON jobcat.jobcat_id=cvjobcats.jobcat WHERE cvjobcats.jobcat='4'"; Great. I'm now lost. Can anyone advise? Thanks in advance, PS: <far too much information> cv contains columns including an primary key ('cv_id') and a column called 'category' which refers to job categories by number. jobcat contains two fields: a primary key (jobcat_id) and a plain english description cvjobcat contains two key columns: 'cv_id' and 'jobcat_id'. </far too much information>

Hello Jackson Are there any circumstances under which the cvjobcats table would have a job category entry that does not appear in the jobcats table? IF not, you really don't need to use the LEFT JOINS. Instead you coudl do something like this: SELECT cv.cv_id,cv.category,dates,cv.job_title,cv.company,cv.job, jobcat.category FROM cv, cvjobcats, jobcats WHERE cvjobcats.cv=cv.cv_id AND cvjobcats_jobcat = 4 AND jobcat.jobcat_id=cvjobcats.jobcat Less technically impressive perhaps but easier to follow ;) Regards Rory