Question

OKay, I will try to make this make sense lol. Basically I have 4 different tables I am trying to join instead of doing a few separate SQL statements, as the MYSQL engine should be able to optimize it better than I could.

Basically I have these 4 tables:

projects (key:id)
project_users (key:project_id , user_id)
users (key:id)
tasks (key:project_id)

This is my query:

     SELECT projects.*, users.*, tasks.*,
     FROM 
     projects JOIN ( project_users JOIN 
                     users ON 
                     project_users.user = users.id ) 
        ON projects.id = project_users.project_id
        JOIN ( tasks )
               ON projects.id = tasks.project_id 
      WHERE projects.company = 2 ORDER BY projects.id

Basically I am trying to get a list of projects, users in that project, and tasks in that project for a certain company.

THE ISSUE – If there is not a task in this project, it doesnt return that project. Which I still need that project, just with 0 tasks for that project.

I am new to JOIN statements, so if there is some improving I can do, PLEASE let me know!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND HELP!!!!!

Answer 1

All you need to do is add left outer before the join that joins the tasks. This will get you projects even though there are no tasks.