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=head1 NAME
DBIx::Class::Manual::Joining - Manual on joining tables with DBIx::Class
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This document should help you to use L<DBIx::Class> if you are trying
to convert your normal SQL queries into DBIx::Class based queries, if
you use joins extensively (and also probably if you don't).
=head1 WHAT ARE JOINS
If you ended up here and you don't actually know what joins are yet,
then you should likely try the L<DBIx::Class::Manual::Intro>
instead. Skip this part if you know what joins are..
But I'll explain anyway. Assuming you have created your database in a
more or less sensible way, you will end up with several tables that
contain C<related> information. For example, you may have a table
containing information about C<CDs>, containing the CD title and it's
year of publication, and another table containing all the C<Track>s
for the CDs, one track per row.
When you wish to extract information about a particular CD and all
it's tracks, You can either fetch the CD row, then make another query
to fetch the tracks, or you can use a join. Compare:
SELECT ID, Title, Year FROM CD WHERE Title = 'Funky CD';
# .. Extract the ID, which is 10
SELECT Name, Artist FROM Tracks WHERE CDID = 10;
SELECT cd.ID, cd.Title, cd.Year, tracks.Name, tracks.Artist FROM CD JOIN Tracks ON CD.ID = tracks.CDID WHERE cd.Title = 'Funky CD';
So, joins are a way of extending simple select statements to include
fields from other, related, tables. There are various types of joins,
depending on which combination of the data you wish to retrieve, see
L<MySQL's doc on JOINs|http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/join.html>.
=head1 DEFINING JOINS AND RELATIONSHIPS
In L<DBIx::Class> each relationship between two tables needs to first
be defined in the L<ResultSource|DBIx::Class::Manual::Glossary/ResultSource> for the
table. If the relationship needs to be accessed in both directions
(i.e. Fetch all tracks of a CD, and fetch the CD data for a Track),
then it needs to be defined in both tables.
For the CDs/Tracks example, that means writing, in C<MySchema::CD>:
MySchema::CD->has_many('tracks', 'MySchema::Tracks');
And in C<MySchema::Tracks>:
MySchema::Tracks->belongs_to('cd', 'MySchema::CD', 'CDID');
There are several other types of relationships, they are more
comprehensively described in L<DBIx::Class::Relationship>.
=head1 USING JOINS
Once you have defined all your relationships, using them in actual
joins is fairly simple. The type of relationship that you chose
e.g. C<has_many>, already indicates what sort of join will be
performed. C<has_many> produces a C<LEFT JOIN> for example, which will
fetch all the rows on the left side, whether there are matching rows
on the right (table being joined to), or not. You can force other
types of joins in your relationship, see the
L<DBIx::Class::Relationship> docs.
When performing either a L<search|DBIx::Class::ResultSet/search> or a
L<find|DBIx::Class::ResultSet/find> operation, you can specify which
C<relations> to also fetch data from (or sort by), using the
L<join|DBIx::Class::ResultSet/join> attribute, like this:
$schema->resultset('CD')->search(
{ 'Title' => 'Funky CD' },
{ join => 'tracks',
'+select' => [ 'tracks.Name', 'tracks.Artist' ],
'+as' => [ 'TrackName', 'ArtistName' ]
}
);
If you don't recognise most of this syntax, you should probably go
read L<DBIx::Class::ResultSet/search> and
L<DBIx::Class::ResultSet/ATTRIBUTES>, but here's a quick break down:
The first argument to search is a hashref of the WHERE attributes, in
this case a simple restriction on the Title column. The second
argument is a hashref of attributes to the search, '+select' adds
extra columns to the select (from the joined table(s) or from
calculations), and '+as' gives aliases to those fields.
'join' specifies which C<relationships> to include in the query. The
distinction between C<relationships> and C<tables> is important here,
only the C<relationship> names are valid.
This example should magically produce SQL like the second select in
L</WHAT ARE JOINS> above.
=head1 COMPLEX JOINS AND STUFF
=head2 Across multiple relations
For simplicity in the example above, the C<Artist> was shown as a
simple text firld in the C<Tracks> table, in reality, you'll want to
have the artists in their own table as well, thus to fetch the
complete set of data we'll need to join to the Artist table too.
In C<MySchema::Tracks>:
MySchema::Tracks->belongs_to('artist', 'MySchema::Artist', 'ArtistID');
The search:
$schema->resultset('CD')->search(
{ 'Title' => 'Funky CD' },
{ join => { 'tracks' => 'artist' },
'+select' => [ 'tracks.Name', 'artist.Artist' ],
'+as' => [ 'TrackName', 'ArtistName' ]
}
);
Which is:
SELECT me.ID, me.Title, me.Year, tracks.Name, artist.Artist FROM CD me JOIN Tracks tracks ON CD.ID = tracks.CDID JOIN Artists artist ON tracks.ArtistID = artist.ID WHERE me.Title = 'Funky CD';
To perform joins using relations of the tables you are joining to, use
a hashref to indicate the join depth. This can theoretically go as
deep as you like (warning, contrived examples!):
join => { room => { table => 'leg' } }
To join two relations at the same level, use an arrayref instead:
join => { room => [ 'chair', 'table' ] }
Or combine the two:
join => { room => [ 'chair', { table => 'leg' } ]
=head2 Table aliases
As an aside to all the discussion on joins, note that L<DBIx::Class>
uses the C<relation names> as table aliases. This is important when
you need to add grouping or ordering to your queries:
$schema->resultset('CD')->search(
{ 'Title' => 'Funky CD' },
{ join => { 'tracks' => 'artist' },
order_by => [ 'tracks.Name', 'artist.Artist' ],
'+select' => [ 'tracks.Name', 'artist.Artist' ],
'+as' => [ 'TrackName', 'ArtistName' ]
}
);
SELECT me.ID, me.Title, me.Year, tracks.Name, artist.Artist FROM CD me JOIN Tracks tracks ON CD.ID = tracks.CDID JOIN Artists artist ON tracks.ArtistID = artist.ID WHERE me.Title = 'Funky CD' ORDER BY tracks.Name, artist.Artist;
This is essential if any of your tables have columns with the same names.
Note that the table of the resultsource the search was performed on, is always aliased to C<me>.
=head2 Joining to the same table twice
There is no magic to this, just do it. The table aliases will
automatically be numbered:
join => [ 'room', 'room' ]
The aliases are: C<room> and C<room_2>.
=cut
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