Question

I am trying to run a query on a SQLite database that INNER JOINs two additional tables:

SELECT
    usages.date AS date,
    usages.data AS data,
    stores.number AS store,
    items.name AS item
FROM usages
INNER JOIN stores USING (store_id)
INNER JOIN items USING (item_id)

However, I get the error

SQL error: cannot join using column item_id - column not present in both tables

I know I can use the explicit INNER JOIN stores ON usages.store_id = stores.store_id (and it works), but:
why does the USING query throw an error in SQLite?

It doesn’t on MySQL…

I should note:
This isn’t a problem for me, as I am using the ON syntax, but I would like to know why this is happening.

Answer 1

So you have:

INNER JOIN items USING (item_id)

…and you get an error that says:

SQL error: cannot join using column item_id – column not present in both tables

That’s got to be one of the least cryptic error messages I’ve seen.
What I don’t like is that it’s not clear to me what table is being compared to ITEMS.item_id – is it STORES or USAGES? Which is why I refrain from the USING or NATURAL join syntax…