Question

Actually found a lot of question like this before posting but doesn’t find one related with “Codeigniter” so I don’t know how to implement those answer with codeigniter.

My meta_key table

key_id | key_name | key_parent
------------------------------
.....1..firstname........1

.....2..lastname.........1

My users_meta table

meta_id | meta_user_id | meta_key_id |meta_value |
--------------------------------------------------
1.........1..............1............chuck......

When I run this query

$this->db->select("*");
    $this->db->from("meta_key");
    $this->db->join("users_meta", "users_meta.meta_key_id=meta_key.key_id","left");
    $this->db->where('users_meta.meta_user_id', '1');
    $query=$this->db->get();
    return $query;

It always return me single rows ( that is the firstname rows )

Instead of “left” join I tried every option ( Options are: left, right, outer, inner, left outer, and right outer ) from the codeigniter reference page but it still return single rows.

How can I make it to return the “surname” rows as well ?

Answer 1

As you commented that following code works for you so here it is as answer

//just guess and try 
$this->db->where('users_meta.meta_user_id = 1 OR users_meta.meta_key_id IS NULL');