Re: A (+) in the where clause

In article ijg_at_pandora.sdsu.edu, oliver_at_io.nosc.mil (George Oliver) writes:
>
>Reynaldo Paulo (rpaulo_at_metz.une.edu.au) wrote:
>: Does anyone out there know what the (+) in the following
>: statement means?
>
>
>: select <something>
>: into <avariable>
>: from <atable>
>: where atable.field (+) = <somevalue>
>
>
>: Many thanks.
 

>: +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>: |Rey V. Paulo | "I am not bound to please thee with my |
>: |University of New England | answer." |
>: |Internet: rpaulo_at_metz.une.edu.au | - Shylock in The Merchant of Venice |
>: +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>
>The (+) operator is used for an outer join. An outer join is used when you
>want to return rows that match some value or values in a different table and
>also include rows that don't match. So in the example above, you will get
>those rows from atable where atable.field matches <somevalue> and those rows
>where atable.field does not match <somevalue>

    This would be equivalent to _NO_ where clause whatsoever.

>
>George Oliver
>NRaD, Code 423
>oliver_at_nosc.mil
>

Note quite .... in addition to the rows where atable.field = <somevalue> rows are returned where atable.field IS NULL.

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                                  Declan Higgins - dhiggins_at_bfsec.bt.co.uk 
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             "Mihi crede, hoc mihi magis quam tibi nocet"
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