Message-ID: <4283335591EA4532BCE90938FCF5136F@marktestcr.marktest.pt>
From: "Oliveiros d'Azevedo Cristina" <oliveiros.cristina@marktest.pt>
To: "Jedrin" <jrubiando@gmail.com>,
	<pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
References: 
 <433c09b3-b89e-4c66-9849-944d2d97e0e8@f42g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: join table problem
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:11:35 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Howdy!

> At any rate, say I have 3 tables:
>
> table plant
>  id:integer
>  name string
>
>
> table seed_supplier
>  id: integer
>  company_name: string
>
> table plant_seed_supplier
>  plant_id
>  seed_supplier_id
>
> plant_seed_supplier is a join table that supports a many to many
> relationship between the plant table and the seed supplier table since
> any plant may have multiple seed suppliers and any seed supplier can
> sell seeds for many different plants.
>
> I would like to be able to write a single query that basically does
> this:
>
> It will show only one distinct row for each plant in the database. It
> will show either just one seed_supplier company name associated with
> that plant, or if there is no supplier associated with that plant it
> will show the plant in a row with that field empty.
>

You do not specify what is the seed_supplier company name that should appear 
in the case there is more than one

Give this (untested) query a try

SELECT name,MIN(company_name)
FROM plant a
JOIN plant_seed_supplier associative
ON plant_id = a.id
JOIN seed_supplier b
ON b.id = supplier_id
GROUP BY name

Best,
Oliveiros