How to do an INNER JOIN on multiple columns

Question

You can JOIN with the same table more than once by giving the joined tables an alias, as in the following example:

SELECT 
    airline, flt_no, fairport, tairport, depart, arrive, fare
FROM 
    flights
INNER JOIN 
    airports from_port ON (from_port.code = flights.fairport)
INNER JOIN
    airports to_port ON (to_port.code = flights.tairport)
WHERE 
    from_port.code = '?' OR to_port.code = '?' OR airports.city='?'

Note that the to_port and from_port are aliases for the first and second copies of the airports table.

something like....

SELECT f.*
      ,a1.city as from
      ,a2.city as to
FROM flights f
INNER JOIN airports a1
ON f.fairport = a1.code
INNER JOIN airports a2
ON f.tairport = a2.code

Why can't it just use AND in the ON clause? For example:

SELECT *
FROM flights
INNER JOIN airports
   ON ((airports.code = flights.fairport)
       AND (airports.code = flights.tairport))

if mysql is okay for you:

SELECT flights.*, 
       fromairports.city as fromCity, 
       toairports.city as toCity
FROM flights
LEFT JOIN (airports as fromairports, airports as toairports)
ON (fromairports.code=flights.fairport AND toairports.code=flights.tairport )
WHERE flights.fairport = '?' OR fromairports.city = '?'

edit: added example to filter the output for code or city

If you want to search on both FROM and TO airports, you'll want to join on the Airports table twice - then you can use both from and to tables in your results set:

SELECT
   Flights.*,fromAirports.*,toAirports.*
FROM
   Flights
INNER JOIN 
   Airports fromAirports on Flights.fairport = fromAirports.code
INNER JOIN 
   Airports toAirports on Flights.tairport = toAirports.code
WHERE
 ...