[mysql] MySQL LEFT JOIN 3 tables

I have 3 tables:

Persons (PersonID, Name, SS)
Fears (FearID, Fear)
Person_Fear (ID, PersonID, FearID)

Now I'd like to list every person with whatever fear is linked to them (can be multiple fears but can also be none). The persons table has to be shown even if a person doesn't have a fear linked to them.

I think I need to do a LEFT JOIN, but my code doesn't seem to work:

SELECT persons.name, 
       persons.ss, 
       fears.fear 
FROM   persons 
       LEFT JOIN fears 
              ON person_fear.personid = person_fear.fearid 

What am I doing wrong here?

You are trying to join Person_Fear.PersonID onto Person_Fear.FearID - This doesn't really make sense. You probably want something like:

SELECT Persons.Name, Persons.SS, Fears.Fear FROM Persons
LEFT JOIN Person_Fear
    INNER JOIN Fears
    ON Person_Fear.FearID = Fears.FearID
ON Person_Fear.PersonID = Persons.PersonID

This joins Persons onto Fears via the intermediate table Person_Fear. Because the join between Persons and Person_Fear is a LEFT JOIN, you will get all Persons records.

Alternatively:

SELECT Persons.Name, Persons.SS, Fears.Fear FROM Persons
LEFT JOIN Person_Fear ON Person_Fear.PersonID = Persons.PersonID
LEFT JOIN Fears ON Person_Fear.FearID = Fears.FearID

SELECT p.*, f.Fear
FROM Persons p
LEFT JOIN Person_Fear pf ON pf.PersonID = p.PersonID
LEFT JOIN Fears f ON f.FearID = pf.FearID
ORDER BY p.PersonID

1. You need to select from the Persons table to ensure you generate a row for every person, whether they have fears or not.
2. Then you can left join Person_Fear to every person, which will just be NULL if they don't have any entries (as you want).
3. Finally, you left join Fears on Person_Fear so that you can select the name of the fear.
4. Optionally, add an order so that each person has all their fears listed together, even if they were added to the Person_Fear table at different times.

Select 
    p.Name,
    p.SS,
    f.fear
From
    Persons p
left join
        Person_Fear pf
    inner join
        Fears f
    on
        pf.fearID = f.fearID
 on
    p.personID = pf.PersonID

Select Persons.Name, Persons.SS, Fears.Fear
From Persons
LEFT JOIN Persons_Fear
ON Persons.PersonID = Person_Fear.PersonID
LEFT JOIN Fears
ON Person_Fear.FearID = Fears.FearID;

try this

    SELECT p.Name, p.SS, f.Fear 
    FROM Persons p 
    LEFT JOIN Person_Fear fp 
    ON p.PersonID = fp.PersonID
    LEFT JOIN Fear f
    ON f.FearID = fp.FearID

Try this definitely work.

SELECT p.PersonID AS person_id,
   p.Name, p.SS, 
   f.FearID AS fear_id,
   f.Fear 
   FROM person_fear AS pf 
      LEFT JOIN persons AS p ON pf.PersonID = p.PersonID 
      LEFT JOIN fears AS f ON pf.PersonID = f.FearID 
   WHERE f.FearID = pf.FearID AND p.PersonID = pf.PersonID