Self - Join in SQL Server

A self-join is simply a normal SQL join that joins one table to itself. 
This is accomplished by using table name aliases to give each instance of the table a separate name.

When Useful?Joining a table to itself can be useful when you want to compare values in a column to 
other values in the same column.

We have sample records in Employee table.


Inner Join Example----

SELECT e1.Name EmployeeName, e2.name AS ManagerNameFROM Employee e1
INNER JOIN Employee e2ON e1.ManagerID = e2.EmployeeID

Outer Join example---

SELECT e1.Name EmployeeName, ISNULL(e2.name, 'Top Manager') ASManagerNameFROM Employee e1
LEFT JOIN Employee e2ON e1.ManagerID = e2.EmployeeID

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Joins Examples

I will explain types of SQL JOINs in in this article. JOINs in SQL Server can be classified as follows:

• INNER JOIN
• LEFT OUTER JOIN
• RIGHT OUTER JOIN
• FULL OUTER JOIN
• CROSS JOIN

Each type is explained below with suitable examples:
Let’s consider two tables as Table1 & Table2 for our example.

– CREATE TEST TABLES
CREATE TABLE Table1(ID [int], Code [varchar](10));
GO
CREATE TABLE Table2(ID [int], Amount [int]);
GO


– INSERT DUMMY DATA
INSERT INTO Table1 VALUES
(1,’AAA’),(2,’BBB’),(3,’CCC’)
GO
INSERT INTO Table2 VALUES
(1,50),(2,30),(4,40)
GO

INNER JOIN:
Inner joins return rows only when there is at least one row from both tables that matches the join condition. Inner joins eliminate the rows that do not match with a row from the other table. Below is the query for inner join:

SELECT *
FROM Table1 A
INNER JOIN Table2 B
   ON A.ID = B.ID
GO

LEFT OUTER JOIN
Left Outer joins return all rows from the left table referenced with a left outer join and matching rows from other table. Unmatched records will be NULL. Below is the query for Left Outer Join:

SELECT *
FROM Table1 A
LEFT OUTER JOIN Table2 B
   ON A.ID = B.ID
GO

RIGHT OUTER JOIN
Right Outer joins return all rows from the right table referenced with a right outer join and matching rows from other table. Unmatched records will be NULL. Below is the query for Right Outer Join:

SELECT *
FROM Table1 A
RIGHT OUTER JOIN Table2 B
ON A.ID = B.ID
GO

FULL OUTER JOIN
Full Outer joins return all rows from both the tables. Unmatched records will be NULL. Below is the query for Full Outer Join:

SELECT * FROM Table1 A
FULL OUTER JOIN Table2 B
ON A.ID = B.ID
GO

CROSS JOIN
In cross joins, each row from first table joins with all the rows of another table. If there are m rows from Table1 and n rows from Table2 then result set of these tables will have m*n rows. Below is the query for 

SELECT * FROM Table1 A
CROSS JOIN Table2 B
GO

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Advantages of Views

1) What is a View in SQL Server?
You can think of a view either as a compiled sql query or a virtual table. As a view represents a virtual table, it does not physically store any data. When you query a view, you actually retrieve the data from the underlying base tables.2) What are the advantages of using views?
1. Views can be used to implement row level and column level security.Example 1: Consider the tblEmployee table below. I don't want some of the users to have access to the salary column, but they should still be able to access ID, NAME and DEPT columns. If I grant access to the table, the users will be able to see all the columns. So, to achieve this, I can create a view as shown in Listing 1 below. Now, grant access to the view and not the table. So using views we can provide column level security.

tblEmployee Listing 1 Create View      vWEmployee As Select               ID, Name, Dept From                 tblEmployee

Example 2: Let us say, we have a few users who should be able to access only IT employee details and not any other dept. To do this, I can create a view as shown in Listing 2 below. Now, grant access only to the view and not the table. So using views we can provide row level security as well.Listing 2
Create View     vWITEmployees
As
Select              ID, Name, Dept
From                tblEmployee
Where              Dept = 'IT'2. Simplify the database schema to the users. You can create a view based on multiple tables which join columns from all these multiple tables so that they look like a single table.
3. Views can be used to present aggregated and summarized data.
Example 1: Consider the tblEmployee table above. I want to aggregate the data as shown in the image below. To do this I can create a view as shown in Listing 3. Now, you can simply issue a select query against the view rather than writing a complex query every time you want to retrieve the aggregated data.

Listing 3 Select        Dept, Count(*) As Total From          tblEmployee Group By   Dept

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