Re: Oracle outer join syntax (+) not working???

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 11:08:49 -0700
Message-ID: <1150567732.679646@bubbleator.drizzle.com>

David Portas wrote:
> DA Morgan wrote:

>> No change has been made to Oracle with respect to the ISO syntax.
>> The syntax error is yours.
>>
>> e.proficiencylevelid(+) = h.proficiencylevelid
>>
>> would be correct.

>
> What ISO syntax? You mean www.iso.org? The example you gave is
> proprietary and has nothing to do with standards - not ISO's nor anyone
> else's but Oracle's AFAIK. I mention this because your website also
> seems to say that the (+) syntax is ISO (you have some examples of
> those joins in a section that is titled "ISO").
>
> As far as joins are concerned I know of no difference between the ANSI
> and ISO syntaxes - not in the ANSI / ISO documents I have
> (89,92,1999,2003). Outer joins were not standardized until SQL92 when
> the INNER / OUTER / FULL / CROSS JOIN syntax was defined. Oracle didn't
> adopt that standard until much later (2001?).
>
> The following site has some good material on the history of SQL
> Standards.
> http://www.wiscorp.com/SQLStandards.html

I would appreciate a correction if I am wrong but my understanding has been that the (+) join operator was the ISO standard prior to ISO 99 when the ISO and ANSI standards were, in a sense, merged.

You might note that this operator also exists in Sybase and SQL Server. It is not just an Oracle syntax.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org

Received on Sat Jun 17 2006 - 13:08:49 CDT