Problem iwth sql query

Hey all,
I have 5 tables with TID columns in it.. I need to select similar data from different tables.
But as i do join the data gets so huge that i cant make use of it properly...
Even though i have put where clause but its just returning hell of data...
Most of the times i m reading different tables for just one column.
Table A
colA
colAB
ColAC

Table B
colA
colBA
colBC

Table C
colA
ColCA
colCD

Tbale D
colA
colDA
colDB

Tble E
colA
ColEA
colEB

my sql is

Select ,,,
FROM tblA INNER JOIN
TblB ON tbelA.COlA = tblB.ColA INNER JOIN
TbaleC ON tbelA.COlA = TbaleC.COlA INNER JOIN
tableD ON tbelA.COlA = tableD.ColA INNER JOIN
tableE ON tbelA.COlA = tableE.ColA
where blah blah...

Any help would be appreciated
thxokay, you were pretty liberal with your As and Bs and Cs, very generic, so i will answer your question with an example of my own

the short answer is you're getting cross join effects

here's my example: suppose you have a table for people, a table for blouses, and a table for hats

each blouse belongs to only one person, and each hat belongs to only one person

so now you want a query to find all of mary's blouses and hats

if you just do the join the way you're doing it, here's what happens -- if mary has 4 blouses and 7 hats, the query returns 28 rows for mary

that's your problem, except greatly compounded because of the extra tables|||thats true..
how could i avoid this situation??coz its necessary to hv all the tables in the query....|||you'll have to tell me

there's nothing in any or your table layouts to suggest what they mean

what about a UNION of tables B through E?|||I would ask how would you put the above mentioned example of blouses and stuff in query form...?
So that only limited data is selected...|||okay, fair deal

but please first show me how you want the blouses and hats data arranged in tabular form|||Here is the query...
Would it help?

SELECT DISTINCT
RESULTS_CHECKS.CHECKNAME, ASSETMAIN.VERSIONNUMBER, RESULTS_SUMMARY.STARTTIME,
' XYZ 'AS ScriptName, '3' AS Version,
RESULTS_RECORDS.NOTES, RESULTS_RECORDS.LINENUMBER,USERname, machinename
FROM RESULTS_CHECKS INNER JOIN
RESULTS_RECORDS ON RESULTS_CHECKS.ID = RESULTS_RECORDS.ID INNER JOIN
ASSETMAIN ON RESULTS_CHECKS.ID = ASSETMAIN.ID INNER JOIN
RESULTS_SUMMARY ON RESULTS_CHECKS.ID = RESULTS_SUMMARY.ID INNER JOIN
RESULTS_USERS ON RESULTS_CHECKS.ID = RESULTS_USERS.ID
WHERE ( ASSETMAIN.OBJECTTYPE = 8) AND ( ASSETMAIN.NAME = 'XYZ') AND
( ASSETMAIN.VERSIONNUMBER = 1) AND ( RESULTS_CHECKS.CHECKNAME IS NOT NULL) AND
( RESULTS_SUMMARY.STARTTIME >= '') AND ( RESULTS_RECORDS.RESULT = 2) AND
( RESULTS_USERS.USERNAME = 'dumm')and (Results_Records.ID = RESULTS_CHECKS.ID)
AND (Results_Records.ID = Results_Summary.ID)
AND(Results_Records.ID = Results_Users.ID)|||I'd say that you probably want a simple display of the counts of each item, which in your case are represented by a distinct table, for each row in some main table. The output will be in the format of one row for each person with a single column for the count of each product.

But because you want to display aggregate information, from more than one "one to many" child table, as a single set, you will need to first collapse each of these tables so that they contain only one row per common joining key. Otherwise, you'll encounter the problem that Rudy described above.

Your sample output can be,

MainID, count(ItemA), count(ItemB), count(ItemC)
etc

You can use correlated sub-queries to solve this, but that is an awful approach to use. Namely because it's too much like a procedural approach. These type are also annoying to read for people who don't use a procedural approach as their main tool to solving these kinds of problems.

The other two ways you can solve it are to use either a UNION for each set and a CASE clause at the SELECT, or to create a collapsed inline view of the aggregation for each child table and then join each of these tables back to the master.