This is My SELECT Query For searching user from the DB. The problem is I am only able to get the search result of those users who have posted any content in their postImg table. Otherwise there is no user found. I want to search in such a way that even if any user has not posted any post then it should be found. I am using this query:
<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM postImg LEFT JOIN user ON postImg.userID=user.userID
WHERE user.userID='".$page_owner."' AND (userName LIKE '%".$searchVal."%') GROUP BY user.userID ";
$res3 = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
while($row2=mysql_fetch_assoc($res3)){
echo $row2['userName']; // From user Table
echo $row2['likes']; // From postImg table
echo $row2['posts']; // From postImg table
} ?>
$sql = "SELECT * FROM postImg RIGHT JOIN user ON postImg.userID=user.userID
WHERE user.userID='".$page_owner."' AND (userName LIKE '%".$searchVal."%') GROUP BY user.userID ";
I think that you want user LEFT JOIN postImg, not the other way around as you have it here.
The query as-written will return every record from postImg whether-or-not it has an associated user.
Obviously, you want every user whether or not s/he has a postImg.
Incidentally, I think that changing it to RIGHT JOIN would work also, as Robert suggested in his answer. But, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I've seen a RIGHT join . . . hence, I suggested flipping the table-names. ("Give 'em what they're used to.")
Edit: To clarify (for the benefit of the Peanut Gallery ...): these two forms of so-called "outer joins" are equivalent. The terms, LEFT and RIGHT, simply refer to which one of the two tables is the master ... "the one on the LEFT side," before the word JOIN, (postImg in the query shown in the original post), or, "the one on the RIGHT", after the word JOIN. (user) All of the rows in what I'm calling the "master" will be returned, along with whatever matching values in the "other" table as may be found.
For whatever reason, I very rarely find RIGHT joins being used in production code. It's not that they can't be done, of course, but simply that I've observed that it isn't (usually) done.