I was recently asked what a left join was. If you use SQL with any regularity, this is a handy concept to have in your toolset.

Venn diagrams and mathematics are clear to some, but following is the way I think about these joins.

To explain Left Join best, I will start with the standard Join, the Inner Join.

Link up the tables on each match. Anything that doesn't match, don't include. Note the following gotcha, given as a concrete example: if you are joining on a column in table A having three rows with the number 5 in them, against a column in table B having two rows with the number 5, you will get a resultant table with six rows (3 times 2).

To understand this best, just realize it is a regular Inner Join like already mentioned, except that it will also include any rows from the left table that were excluded from the Join. The left table just means the table you are starting with. That is, in

SELECT * FROM t1
JOIN t2 
ON t1.a = t2.a

t1 is the left table (you are starting with that one.)

Same as Left Join, just the right side.

Same as Left and Right Join, just do both this time.

For every row in table 1, join it to every row in table 2. If there are 5 rows in table 1 and 4 in table 2, you will get 20 rows. You do not need to indicate columns with this Join.