NYCPHP Meetup

[Steve Manes]

David Krings wrote:
> I'm getting back the rows that I want, but not in the correct order and 
> only by using DISTINCT, which I once was told is a nono and not needed 
> if I'd just do it right.
> My attempt to output the columns that contain the values the reocrds are 
> to get sorted on ends up in being a cartesian join, which barfs up 1248 
> rows instead of the 26 I epxect.

Without seeing the actual SQL query it's impossible to guess where the 
problem is.  In general though, cartesian joins are the result of 
incomplete join conditionals and, sometimes, overly-complex WHERE 
clauses in cases where a left join or sub-select would be more reliable.

The classic cartesian join:

SELECT * FROM users, orders;