Question

This is my first post, but I’ve been reading here for ages taking in a lot of great information.

Please bear with me as I try to explain my predicament. I wasn’t even sure how to label my question, since I don’t really know the terminology for what I’m trying to do. I’m a beginner of PHP/MySQL (this will become painfully obvious when you see my question), but I’m eager to learn.

Anyway, here goes:

I have two tables, named Games and Teams.

mysql> describe games;

+-----------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field     | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id        | int(11)       | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| homeTeam  | int(11)       | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| awayTeam  | int(11)       | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| homeScore | int(11)       | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| awayScore | int(11)       | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| homeOdds  | decimal(10,2) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| drawOdds  | decimal(10,2) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| awayOdds  | decimal(10,2) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| gameDate  | date          | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-----------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

and

mysql> describe teams;

+-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id    | int(11)      | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| team  | varchar(255) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

I would like the fields Games.homeTeam and Games.awayTeam to do a lookup for their values in the Teams.id and Teams.team fields. Basically Games.homeTeam should find its equivalent in Teams.id. Simple enough. However, I would like both Games.homeTeam and Games.awayTeam to look in the Teams table within the same SQL statement.

I figured maybe something like this would work:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Games g, Teams ht, Teams at where g.homeTeam = ht.id AND g.awayTeam = at.id ORDER BY g.gameDate") or die(mysql_error());

and then to pick the rows up:

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { echo "Home Team: " . $row['ht.team'];}

That’s a no go, as I get a mysql error saying there’s no index named ht.team.

I hope it’s fairly clear what I’m trying to achieve here. How should I go about this? I assume I have to use aliases of some sort, but I can’t wrap my head around as to what the SQL statement should look like to accomplish what I want.

Answer 1

Don’t use SELECT * with join queries! Always be explicit about the columns you need in your SELECT list, and supply column aliases:

SELECT 
  /* Only select the columns you actually need, and 
   * supply aliases to those with similar names
   */
  ht.team AS ht_team,
  ht.id AS ht_id,
  at.team AS at_team,
  at.id AS at_id
  g.homeScore,
  g.awayScore,
  g.homeOdds,
  g.drawOdds,
  g.awayOdds,
  g.gameDate
FROM 
  Games g, 
  Teams ht, 
  Teams at 
where g.homeTeam = ht.id AND g.awayTeam = at.id 
ORDER BY g.gameDate

In your PHP, access them via their aliases, for example:

echo "Home Team: {$row['ht_team']}";

By the way, although your method of implicit (comma-separated tables and conditions in the WHERE clause) joins will work, using explicit joining is often recommended. It is a newer syntax, and will allow easier expansion into LEFT JOIN or RIGHT JOIN when the need arises:

SELECT 
  ht.team AS ht_team,
  ht.id AS ht_id,
  at.team AS at_team,
  at.id AS at_id
  g.homeScore,
  g.awayScore,
  g.homeOdds,
  g.drawOdds,
  g.awayOdds,
  g.gameDate
FROM 
  /* Explicit JOIN syntax */
  Games g, 
  JOIN Teams ht ON g.homeTeam = ht.id 
  JOIN Teams at ON g.awayTeam = at.id 
ORDER BY g.gameDate