SQL, How to query with multiple foreign keys in a table?

Question

Hi there

I have a projects table which has two foreign keys for users (user_id and winner_user_id), one for the owner of the project and one for the winner of the project. Something like

+----------------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field          | Type                    | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+----------------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| project_id     | int(10) unsigned        | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment | 
| start_time     | datetime                | NO   |     | NULL    |                | 
| end_time       | datetime                | NO   |     | NULL    |                | 
| title          | varchar(60)             | NO   |     | NULL    |                | 
| description    | varchar(1000)           | NO   |     | NULL    |                | 
| user_id        | int(11)                 | NO   |     | NULL    |                | 
| winner_user_id | int(10) unsigned        | YES  |     | NULL    |                | 
| type           | enum('fixed','auction') | YES  |     | NULL    |                | 
| budget         | decimal(10,0)           | YES  |     | NULL    |                | 
+----------------+-------------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Now I am trying in a single query to get information about projects and the data about both of the users.

So I formulated a query like

SELECT projects.project_id, projects.title, projects.start_time,
            projects.description, projects.user_id, projects.winner_user_id,
            users.username as owner, users.username as winner
        FROM projects,users   
        WHERE projects.user_id=users.user_id
        AND projects.winner_user_id=users.user_id

Which returns an empty set obviously. The real problem is how do I reference these different user_ids. I even tried using the AS keyword and then using the name I had created in the same sql query but apparently that doesn't work.

To make things clear in the end I would like something like

+------------+-------------------------------------------------+---------------------+---------+----------------+--------------+--------------+
| project_id | title                                           | start_time          | user_id | winner_user_id | owner        | winner       |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------+---------------------+---------+----------------+--------------+--------------+
|          1 | CSS HTML Tableless expert for site redesign     | 2009-09-01 21:07:26 |       1 |              3 | mr X        | mr Y        | 
|          2 | High Quality Ecommerce 3-Page Design HTML & CSS | 2009-09-01 21:10:04 |       1 |              0 | mr X        | mr Z        |

How can I construct a query to handle this?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You are close, but you need to join the user table in twice, once on the owner and once on the winner. Use a table alias to differentiate the two.

SELECT 
      projects.project_id
    , projects.title
    , projects.start_time
    , projects.description
    , projects.user_id
    , projects.winner_user_id
    , users.username as owner
    , winnerUser.username as winner
FROM projects
INNER 
    JOIN users
    ON projects.user_id=users.user_id
INNER 
    JOIN users winnerUser
    ON projects.winner_user_id=winnerUser.user_id

Answer 2

SELECT ... FROM users AS winers, users AS owners 
WHERE projects.user_id=owners.user_id
        AND projects.winner_user_id=winners.user_id

Answer 3

Hi,

What about using something like this :

SELECT projects.project_id, projects.title, projects.start_time,
    projects.description, projects.user_id, projects.winner_user_id,
    user_owner.username as owner, user_winner.username as winner
FROM projects
    inner join users user_owner on user_owner.user_id = projects.user_id
    inner join users user_winner on user_winner.user_id = projects.winner_user_id

You first have the project, then you inner join on the owner (using one specific alias), and then inner join on the winner (using another specific alias).

And, in the select clause, you use those aliases to get the information you want -- same if you needed to restrict anything in a where clause, btw.

Note : if you also want projects which don't have a winner yet, you might want to use a left join instead of an inner.

Answer 4

SELECT u1.user_id AS user_id, u2.user_id AS AS winner_id 
FROM projects p
    INNER JOIN users u1 ON p.user_id=u1.user_id
    INNER JOIN users u2 ON p.winner_user_id=u2.user_id

Answer 5

This should work, and return NULL if the winner in unknown (when winner_user_id is null)

SELECT projects.project_id, 
  projects.title, 
  projects.start_time,
  projects.description, 
  projects.user_id, 
  projects.winner_user_id,
users_owner.username as owner, 
users_winner.username as winner
FROM projects
  INNER JOIN users AS users_owner ON users_owner.user_id = projects.user_id
  LEFT OUTER JOIN users AS users_winner ON users_winner.user_id = projects.winner_user_id