Here you find information about writing RIGHT JOINs (also referred to as RIGHT OUTER JOINs). This introduction into right joins includes a detailed description, syntax information and right outer join example statements. The Venn diagram on the left represents a result set that a statement with a right join produces. Please refer to the syntax examples below for an example. Links to additional information resources can be found at the end of this article.

Right Join syntax

First of all, some syntax examples for the impatient:

-- right join with USING-clause
SELECT *
FROM <leftTable> RIGHT JOIN <rightTable>
USING(id)

-- right join with ON-clause
SELECT *
FROM <leftTable> a RIGHT JOIN <rightTable> b …

By “Good SQL Querying”, I am not referring to “how to make your queries more perfomant.” I am about to go on a mini-rant about how to make readable and self-documenting SQL queries.

One practice that will get me instantly going on a rant is using a comma join. There is NO reason to do the following:

-- uses the sakila sample database
SELECT first_name, last_name, address
FROM customer,address;

What kind of join did the original author intend? A CROSS JOIN? Or did they really want an INNER JOIN and forget the WHERE clause?

The answer: you do not know for sure; you can only guess. Had the query been

SELECT first_name,last_name,address
FROM customer INNER JOIN address;

you would know that the author intended an INNER JOIN; had the query been

SELECT first_name,last_name,address
FROM customer CROSS JOIN address;

you would know that the author intended a CROSS JOIN. I …