join problem

I have the following code:

SELECT DISTINCT a.id
                b.name
                c.number
FROM appeal a,
     customer b,
     inventory c
WHERE TO_CHAR(a.insertdate, 'DD-MON-RR') = '14-NOV-02' AND
      b.cuid = a.ah_cuid AND
      c.i_cuid (+) = b.cuid;

This works just fine and prints out the name of the customer for all that meet the date criteria regardless of whether or not there is a corresponding entry in the inventory table thanks to the outer join. It is also printing the inventory number IF it is present.

However, when I add something to it like...

   AND c.status = 2;
...then it only prints out the customers where they have an inventory item with status of 2. I thought that the outer join was taking care of it when there was no inventory item for that customer. If the inventory item is not status 2, I don't want it to print, but I still want the customer name to print based on the insert date. What am I doing wrong with this join?

-Mike Received on Fri Nov 15 2002 - 09:51:05 CST