mysqlsqldateleft-join

Left Outer Join doesn't return all rows from my left table?


I am trying to get the number of page opens on a per day basis using the following query.

SELECT day.days, COUNT(*) as opens 
FROM day 
LEFT OUTER JOIN tracking ON day.days = DAY(FROM_UNIXTIME(open_date)) 
WHERE tracking.open_id = 10 
GROUP BY day.days

The output I get it is this:

days opens
1   9
9   2

The thing is, in my day table, I have a single column that contains the number 1 to 30 to represent the days in a month. I did a left outer join and I am expecting to have all days show on the days column!

But my query is doing that, why might that be?


Solution

  • Nanne's answer given explains why you don't get the desired result (your WHERE clause removes rows), but not how to fix it.

    The solution is to change WHERE to AND so that the condition is part of the join condition, not a filter applied after the join:

    SELECT day.days, COUNT(*) as opens 
    FROM day 
    LEFT OUTER JOIN tracking
    ON day.days = DAY(FROM_UNIXTIME(open_date)) 
    AND tracking.open_id = 10 
    GROUP BY day.days
    

    Now all rows in the left table will be present in the result.