mySQL get information from multiple tables in one query

Question

I\'m terribly new to SQL, and cannot seem to get the desired information out, after trying a few different google searches, and reading through some SQL tutorials.

I

Answer 1

SELECT a1.Who, a1.What, a1.ID, c.When, c.Comment
FROM Activity AS a1
  JOIN Activity AS a2 ON (a1.ID = a2.ID AND a1.When > a2.When)
  JOIN Comments AS c ON (a1.ID = c.ID AND a.When = c.When);
WHERE a2.What = 'Closed';

I think you need some way to associate a row in Comments to the correct row in Activity. Right now if two people comment on a given Task on the same day, you don't know whose comment is whose. I'd recommend that you give each row in Activity a unique key, and then reference that from the Comments table.

CREATE TABLE Tasks (
  Task_ID      INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  Created      DATE NOT NULL,
  Status       VARCHAR(10)
) TYPE=InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE Activity (
  Activity_ID  INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  Task_ID      INT NOT NULL REFERENCES Tasks,
  Who          VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
  What         VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
  When         DATE NOT NULL
) TYPE=InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE Comments (
  Comment_ID   INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  Activity_ID  INT NOT NULL REFERENCES Activity,
  Who          VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
  When         DATE NOT NULL,
  Comment      VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL
) TYPE=InnoDB;

Then you can make associations so the query returns more accurate results:

SELECT c.Who, a1.What, a1.Task_ID, c.When, c.Comment
FROM Activity AS a1
  JOIN Activity AS a2 ON (a1.Task_ID = a2.Task_ID AND a1.When > a2.When)
  JOIN Comments AS c ON (a1.Activity_ID = c.Activity_ID);
WHERE a2.What = 'Closed';

Make sure to use TYPE=InnoDB in MySQL because the default storage engine MyISAM doesn't support foreign key references.