I need to make a table to look up common (vernacular) names for some organisms. So I imported the USGS ITIS database from text files into MySQL and created this little view. Hopefully this helps someone else.
CREATE ALGORITHM=UNDEFINED DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` SQL SECURITY DEFINER VIEW `v_flat_table` AS
SELECT
`taxonomic_units`.`tsn` AS `tsn`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_ind1` AS `unit_ind1`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_name1` AS `unit_name1`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_ind2` AS `unit_ind2`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_name2` AS `unit_name2`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_ind3` AS `unit_ind3`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_name3` AS `unit_name3`,
`taxonomic_units`.`unit_ind4` AS `unit_ind4`,
`taxonomic_units`.`parent_tsn` AS `parent_tsn`,
`taxonomic_units`.`update_date` AS `update_date`,
`taxon_unit_types`.`rank_name` AS `rank_name`,
`vernaculars`.`vernacular_name` AS `vernacular_name`,
`longnames`.`completename` AS `completename`
FROM (((`taxon_unit_types`
JOIN `taxonomic_units`
ON (((`taxon_unit_types`.`rank_id` = `taxonomic_units`.`rank_id`)
AND (`taxon_unit_types`.`kingdom_id` = `taxonomic_units`.`kingdom_id`))))
LEFT JOIN `vernaculars`
ON ((`vernaculars`.`tsn` = `taxonomic_units`.`tsn`)))
LEFT JOIN `longnames`
ON ((`longnames`.`tsn` = `taxonomic_units`.`tsn`)))