Re: Help :- testing if values are not in a table

Andy MArr <andy_at_pindar.com> wrote:

>I've got a text file of ID type values which need to be compared agains
>the primary key of a main table with the same type of ID values.
 

>What I want to know is, whats the best(fast) way to check which values
>in the temporay table are NOT in the main table. Basically I want to
>list the values from the import file which are not in the database.
 

>I can only think of an individual select for each value or a WHERE NOT
>EXISTS type clause. Which would be the fastest ? , are there any other
>clever ways ? .

I have been using this trick for the past few years. I can't explain WHY it is faster, but it works!

SELECT Temp.column
FROM Temp, Main
WHERE Temp.column = Main.column(+)
AND Main.column IS NULL Received on Fri Mar 29 1996 - 00:00:00 CET