left join turns into inner join

Question

SELECT
a.foo
b.bar
c.foobar
FROM tableOne AS a
INNER JOIN tableTwo AS b ON a.pk = b.fk
LEFT JOIN tableThree AS c ON b.pk = c.fk
WHERE a.foo = \'something\'
AND c.foo         


        

Answer 1

The 'where' clause is performed after the join. This doesn't matter for inner joins but matters for outer joins.

Shorten Example

SELECT b.bar,c.foobar FROM tableTwo AS b LEFT JOIN tableThree AS c ON b.pk=c.fk WHERE c.foobar='somethingelse'

Raw data                  Outer Join Result        Select Result
b.pk c.fk c.foorbar       b.pk c.fk c.foorbar      c.foorbar
1    1    something       1    1    something      
1    1    somethingelse   1    1    somethingelse  somethingelse


SELECT b.bar,c.foobar FROM tableTwo AS b LEFT JOIN tableThree AS c ON b.pk=c.fk AND c.foobar='somethingelse'

Raw data                  Outer Join Result        Select Result
b.pk c.fk c.foorbar       b.pk c.fk c.foorbar      c.foorbar
1    1    something       1    null null           null
1    1    somethingelse   1    1    somethingelse  somethingelse