When working with databases, it’s essential to understand different types of joins for retrieving data from multiple tables. One such type is the RIGHT JOIN, which can be used in SQL to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column.

How RIGHT JOIN Works

With a RIGHT JOIN, all the records from the right table (table2) are returned along with matched records from the left table (table1), and the unmatched records from the left table are also included with NULL values in the result set.

Syntax

The syntax for a RIGHT JOIN in SQL is as follows:

SELECT table1.column1, table2.column2...
FROM table1
RIGHT JOIN table2 ON table1.column_name = table2.column_name;

Example

Suppose we have two tables, employees and departments. We want to retrieve all the records from the departments table along with the matching records from the employees table based on the department ID.

SELECT *
FROM employees
RIGHT JOIN departments ON employees.department_id = departments.department_id;

In this example, the result set will include all the records from the departments table along with matching employee details, and any departments without employees will also be included with NULL values for employee details.

By understanding the behavior and syntax of RIGHT JOIN, you can effectively retrieve the required data from multiple tables in SQL.

For further information, you can refer to the official documentation: SQL RIGHT JOIN.