Combinations

A JOIN with no join conditions results in every row in one table being connected to every row in another table, forming all possible row combinations.

Often this is done by mistake, but it can be useful. In this example we use this as an advantage to show the goals made for all games.

schema:scott

DROP TABLE teams;
DROP TABLE tscores

 CREATE TABLE teams(
  teamname VARCHAR(20));
INSERT INTO teams VALUES ('Lions');
INSERT INTO teams VALUES ('Tigers');
INSERT INTO teams VALUES ('Wildcats');
INSERT INTO teams VALUES ('Toads');
CREATE TABLE tscores (
  hometeam VARCHAR (20),
  awayteam VARCHAR (20),
  homescore INTEGER,
  awayscore INTEGER );
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Lions', 'Wildcats', 1, 4);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Toads', 'Tigers', 3, 5);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Wildcats', 'Tigers', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Lions', 'Toads', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Wildcats', 'Toads', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Lions', 'Tigers', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Tigers', 'Lions', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Toads', 'Wildcats', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Toads', 'Lions', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Tigers', 'Wildcats', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Tigers', 'Toads', 0, 0);
INSERT INTO tscores VALUES ('Wildcats', 'Lions', 0, 0);

To get all possible values a CROSS JOIN is used.

Conditions as well as a LEFT JOIN are then used to filter the query and make it more accurate.

SELECT home.teamname Home, away.teamname Away, 
tscores.homescore, tscores.awayscore
  FROM teams home CROSS JOIN teams away LEFT JOIN tscores ON
  (home.teamname = tscores.hometeam
   AND tscores.awayteam = away.teamname)
  WHERE home.teamname != away.teamname

Combinations

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