Question

I’ve put together a database, which I believe follows all the “right” ways of doing things, (No redundant data, etc.) as shown below:

I wish to display the data stored in the Nominations table, but by a certain EventID, and with the film Title and Year, and the award Name. I know basic joins, but this seems to be quite complicated — because I’m a newb. Any help about the right way of approaching this problem, so I can face more complicated ones in the future, is much appreciated!

Answer 1

Study “joins”. These are an essential part of the use of SQL. Once you have a select statement that works, study “views” and create a new view using your select statement.

To get you started here is an untested, off the top of my head, example of a select statement using joins. Please also note that MySQL is not a tool I use often, so the syntax is probably not correct for MySQL.

SELECT A.Title, A.Year, C.Name, D.EventID
FROM FILMS A
JOIN NOMINATIONS B ON B.FilmID = A.FilmID
JOIN AWARDS C ON C.AwardID = B.AwardID
JOIN EVENTS D ON D.EventID = B.EventID
WHERE EVENTS.EventID = XX

This will work if all relationships exist. Study “outer join” to pull all the rows of a given table, say FILMS, and include matching row in the other tables.

An author named Joe Celko has written several books on complex SQL statements. You may find his work useful.

hth