Question

I have 5 Tables like this:

• TABLE 1: PRIMARY_KEY,NAME,FK_TABLE2
• TABLE 2: PRIMARY_KEY,FK_TABLE3
• TABLE 3: PRIMARY_KEY,FK_TABLE4
• TABLE 4: PRIMARY_KEY,FK_TABLE5
• TABLE 5: PRIMARY_KEY,DIAGRAM_NAME

And what I want is when I search for a name in a search bar, it returns Name from Table1, and also DIAGRAM_NAME from table 5.
The first part is easy:

SELECT `TABLE1`.name 
from Table 1 
Where `TABLE1`.name LIKE '%$search%'

But for the second part I need your help…
Thank you!

Answer 1

You need to look into using JOIN:

SELECT T.Name, T5.Diagram_Name
FROM Table1 T
   JOIN Table2 T2 ON T.FK_TABLE2 = T2.PRIMARY_KEY
   JOIN Table3 T3 ON T2.FK_TABLE3 = T3.PRIMARY_KEY
   JOIN Table4 T4 ON T3.FK_TABLE4 = T4.PRIMARY_KEY
   JOIN Table5 T5 ON T4.FK_TABLE5 = T5.PRIMARY_KEY
WHERE T.Name LIKE '%$search%'

If you want to return the names that don’t have matching diagram names, use LEFT JOIN instead.

Good luck.