Re: full outer join on 8i

Full outer joins were not implemented until Oracle 9i (a good reason to upgrade that database?). Since you are using pre-9i, you will have to rewrite the query to use a UNION of two OUTER JOINs, similar to the following:

SELECT a.col1,a.col2,b.colA,b.colB
FROM tableA a, tableB b
WHERE a.someID = b.id (+)
AND a.ref LIKE '%4E%'
UNION
SELECT a.col1,a.col2,c.colA,c.colB
FROM tableA a, tableC c
WHERE a.someID = c.id (+)
AND a.ref LIKE '%4E%';

It looks like your UNION query is not written correctly.

HTH,
Brian

-- 
===================================================================

Brian Peasland
dba_at_nospam.peasland.net
http://www.peasland.net

Remove the "nospam." from the email address to email me.


"I can give it to you cheap, quick, and good.
Now pick two out of the three" - Unknown