Question

I have this query statement and want to only get records that has a certain column empty (volunteers_2009.venue_id)

Table is volunteers_2009, column I am looking to see if it is empty: venue_id

Here is the current query:

SELECT volunteers_2009.id, volunteers_2009.comments,     volunteers_2009.choice1, volunteers_2009.choice2, volunteers_2009.choice3,     volunteers_2009.lname, volunteers_2009.fname, volunteers_2009.venue_id,     venues.venue_name  FROM volunteers_2009 AS volunteers_2009  LEFT OUTER JOIN venues ON (volunteers_2009.venue_id = venues.id)  ORDER by $order $sort 

I am trying to do this:

SELECT volunteers_2009.id, volunteers_2009.comments,     volunteers_2009.choice1, volunteers_2009.choice2, volunteers_2009.choice3,     volunteers_2009.lname, volunteers_2009.fname, volunteers_2009.venue_id,     venues.venue_name  FROM volunteers_2009 AS volunteers_2009  LEFT OUTER JOIN venues ON (volunteers_2009.venue_id = venues.id)  ORDER by $order $sort  WHERE volunteers_2009.venue_id == '' 

How would I only list records that have an empty column (venue_id) within the table (volunteers_2009)?

Answer 1

The WHERE clause is out of order in your 2nd query. It must go before the ORDER BY clause.

Also, I don’t imagine you have any venues with an empty id. Perhaps what you really want is this:

SELECT volunteers_2009.id, volunteers_2009.comments,      volunteers_2009.choice1, volunteers_2009.choice2, volunteers_2009.choice3,      volunteers_2009.lname, volunteers_2009.fname, volunteers_2009.venue_id,      venues.venue_name  FROM volunteers_2009  LEFT JOIN venues ON venue_id = venues.id WHERE venues.id IS NULL ORDER BY $order $sort 

That will bring back only volunteers_2009 records that don’t match any venues.

Or this:

SELECT volunteers_2009.id, volunteers_2009.comments,      volunteers_2009.choice1, volunteers_2009.choice2, volunteers_2009.choice3,      volunteers_2009.lname, volunteers_2009.fname, volunteers_2009.venue_id,      venues.venue_name  FROM venues LEFT JOIN volunteers_2009 ON volunteers_2009.venue_id = venues.id WHERE volunteers_2009.venue_id IS NULL ORDER BY $order $sort 

to find venues with no volunteers.