Differences between INNER JOIN and OUTER JOIN in MySQL

In MySQL, INNER JOIN and OUTER JOIN are two types of joins used to retrieve data from multiple tables based on a related column. The main difference between them lies in how they handle unmatched rows:

INNER JOIN:

The INNER JOIN in MySQL only returns rows that have matching values in both tables being joined. It excludes rows where there is no matching value in the other table.

OUTER JOIN:

On the other hand, the OUTER JOIN in MySQL includes unmatched rows from one or both tables in the result set. There are three types of OUTER JOIN in MySQL: LEFT JOIN, RIGHT JOIN, and FULL JOIN. These allow you to include unmatched rows from the left table, right table, or both tables in the result set.

Overall, the key difference is that INNER JOIN only includes matching rows, while OUTER JOIN includes both matching and unmatched rows.