如何在MYSQL中使用INNER / OUTER JOIN

Question

I have 3 tables which contain different types of data related to each other. the tables populate via an excel spreadsheet. I have:

table1            table2          table3
item_number       item_number     item_number
desc              desc            qty_sold
qty_instock       vdf_cost        upc
cost              status

What I'm trying to do is use a join function to show all the data as they relate to each other, except the problem is that when I run

SELECT *
FROM table1 a
INNER JOIN table2 b
ON  a.someColumn = b.otherColumn
INNER JOIN table3 c
ON b.anotherColumn = c.nextColumn

It just puts the tables side by side, If I run

SELECT *
FROM table1 a
INNER JOIN table2 b
USING(item_number)

It works but only joins the item number (i have no idea how to use multiple fields such as description which repeats), and for some reason I can only use the two tables when I try to add a third table (most likely being done completely wrong)

SELECT *
FROM table1 a
INNER JOIN table2 b
INNER JOIN table3 c
USING(item_number)

I just get a syntax error.

Thanks for all the help in advance

UPDATE:

I got it working

SELECT *
FROM master_list a 
INNER JOIN bby_report ab USING (item_number, description)
INNER JOIN sales_report b USING (item_number)

Is there a way I can exclude the description from one of the tables and keep it from another one? Turns out the descriptions are not an exact match from one table to a another so it keeps returning zero results.

So to clarify keep description from table1 and leave out description from table2 while being able to JOIN the fields based on item_number

Answer 1

SELECT *
FROM master_list a 
INNER JOIN bby_report ab USING (item_number, description)
INNER JOIN sales_report b USING (item_number)