gistfile1.txt

SELECT candidates.*, histories.job_title, institutions.name FROM `candidates` 
 JOIN histories ON (histories.candidate_id = candidates.id AND histories.finish_date IS NULL) 
 JOIN institutions ON histories.institution_id = institutions.id 
 WHERE (candidates.id IN ('1','3','4','6') ) 
 ORDER BY institutions.name ASC, candidates.last_name ASC

CREATE TABLE `candidates` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `first_name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  `last_name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

CREATE TABLE `histories` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `job_title` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  `candidate_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `institution_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `start_date` date DEFAULT NULL,
  `finish_date` date DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

CREATE TABLE `institutions` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1


I want the data to look either like:

Candidate.*, Institutions.name
WHERE histories.finish_date = NULL

or

Candidate.*, Institution NULL