This are probably not of general interest, just some example queries from a particular database that I wanted to save here as snippets.
--view all category titles from node: n & d, category node: c
$sql="SELECT n.nid, c.title AS cname, d.field_catcache_value AS cat FROM node AS n"
. " JOIN content_type_document AS d ON d.nid=n.nid AND d.vid=n.vid"
. " JOIN node AS c ON c.nid=d.field_category_nid"
. " WHERE n.type = 'document'";
--get the body of the category definition c from a given node n & d
SELECT n.nid, c.title, r.body AS cname FROM node AS n