MySQL - Full Join

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MySQL Full Join creates a new table by joining two tables as a whole. The joined table contains all records from both the tables and fill in NULLs for missing matches on either side. In short, full join is a type of outer join that combines the results of both left and right joins.

MySQL Full Join

In MySQL, there is no provision to perform full join operation. We can, however, imitate this operation to produce the same results.

The result-set obtained from performing full join is a union of result-sets obtained from left join and right join. Thus, we can first retrieve result-sets from left and right join operations and combine them using the UNION keyword.

But, this method only works for cases where duplicate records are non-existent. If we want to include the duplicate rows, using UNION ALL keyword to combine the result-sets is preferred.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax to emulate Full Join −

SELECT table1.column1, table2.column2...
FROM table1
LEFT JOIN table2
ON table1.common_field = table2.common_field

[UNION | UNION ALL]

SELECT table1.column1, table2.column2...
FROM table1
RIGHT JOIN table2
ON table1.common_field = table2.common_field;

Example

In this example, we are imitating the full join operation using UNION or UNION ALL keyword. First, let us create a table named CUSTOMERS using the following query −;

CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS (
   ID INT NOT NULL,
   NAME VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL,
   AGE INT NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS CHAR (25),
   SALARY DECIMAL (18, 2),       
   PRIMARY KEY (ID)
);

Now insert values into this table using the INSERT statement as follows −

ID	NAME	AGE	ADDRESS	SALARY
1	Ramesh	32	Ahmedabad	2000.00
2	Khilan	25	Delhi	1500.00
3	Kaushik	23	Kota	2000.00
4	Chaitali	25	Mumbai	6500.00
5	Hardik	27	Bhopal	8500.00
6	Komal	22	Hyderabad	4500.00
7	Muffy	24	Indore	10000.00

Let us create another table ORDERS, containing the details of orders made and the date they are made on.

CREATE TABLE ORDERS (
   OID INT NOT NULL,
   DATE VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL,
   CUSTOMER_ID INT NOT NULL,
   AMOUNT DECIMAL (18, 2),
);

Using the INSERT statement, insert values into this table as follows −

INSERT INTO ORDERS VALUES 
(102, '2009-10-08 00:00:00', 3, 3000.00),
(100, '2009-10-08 00:00:00', 3, 1500.00),
(101, '2009-11-20 00:00:00', 2, 1560.00),
(103, '2008-05-20 00:00:00', 4, 2060.00);

The table is displayed as follows −

OID	DATE	CUSTOMER_ID	AMOUNT
102	2009-10-08 00:00:00	3	3000.00
100	2009-10-08 00:00:00	3	1500.00
101	2009-11-20 00:00:00	2	1560.00
103	2008-05-20 00:00:00	4	2060.00

Full Join Query −

On executing the following query, we will produce the union of two tables CUSTOMERS and ORDERS.

SELECT ID, NAME, AMOUNT, DATE
FROM CUSTOMERS
LEFT JOIN ORDERS
ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID
UNION
SELECT ID, NAME, AMOUNT, DATE
FROM CUSTOMERS
RIGHT JOIN ORDERS
ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID;

Output

The resultant table is produced as follows −

ID	NAME	AMOUNT	DATE
1	Ramesh	NULL	NULL
2	Khilan	1560	2009-11-20 00:00:00
3	Kaushik	3000	2009-10-08 00:00:00
3	Kaushik	1500	2009-10-08 00:00:00
4	Chaitali	2060	2008-05-20 00:00:00
5	Hardik	NULL	NULL
6	Komal	NULL	NULL
7	Muffy	NULL	NULL

Full Join with WHERE Clause

With Joins, we are filtering records using the ON clause, by default. Let us suppose there is a further requirement to filter records based on a certain condition, we can make use of WHERE clause with the Joins.

Syntax

The syntax of Full Join when used with WHERE clause is given below −

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name1
FULL JOIN table_name2
ON table_name1.column_name = table_name2.column_name
WHERE condition

Example

Consider the previous two tables CUSTOMERS and ORDERS, and join them using the following Full Join query by applying some constraints using the WHERE clause.

SELECT ID, NAME, DATE, AMOUNT 
FROM CUSTOMERS
LEFT JOIN ORDERS
ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID
WHERE ORDERS.AMOUNT > 2000.00

UNION 

SELECT ID, NAME, DATE, AMOUNT 
FROM CUSTOMERS
RIGHT JOIN ORDERS
ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID
WHERE ORDERS.AMOUNT > 2000.00;

Output

The resultant table after applying the where clause with full join contains the rows that has amount values greater than 2000.00 −

ID	NAME	DATE	AMOUNT
3	Kaushik	2009-10-08 00:00:00	3000.00
4	Chaitali	2008-05-20 00:00:00	2060.00