Question

Hello I have 2 tables that look like this,

What I wanting to is get the category and the section title of the category, mySQL looks like this,

SELECT `categories`.`category_id`, 
       `categories`.`category_title`, 
       `categories`.`category_created`, 
       `section`.`section_id`, 
       `section`.`section_title`, 
       `categories`.`parent_section` 
 FROM (`categories`) 
 LEFT JOIN `section` 
 ON `section`.`section_id` = `categories`.`category_id`

However all I am getting back is a list of the categories and the sections, not a list of the categories and their parent section. Have I done something wrong?

Answer 1

If you want the parent section, then your join condition should be on that column:

SELECT `categories`.`category_id`, 
       `categories`.`category_title`, 
       `categories`.`category_created`, 
       `section`.`section_id`, 
       `section`.`section_title`, 
       `categories`.`parent_section` 
 FROM (`categories`) 
 LEFT JOIN `section` 
 ON `section`.`section_id` = `categories`.`parent_section`