Re: [HACKERS] Enhancing PGSQL to be compatible with Informix SQL

> > Thomas has tried to explain the ANSI syntax for outer joins, and I must
> > say I am quite confused by it. A simple OUTER added before the column
> > name would be a quick and simple way to do outers, perhap get them into
> > 7.0, and allow new users to do outers without having to learn the quite
> > complex ANSI syntax.
> >
> > At least that was my idea.
>
> First, I'm for getting OUTER JOINs in ASAP...but, I'm a little concerned
> with thought of throwing in what *sounds* like a 'stop gap' measure...
>
> Just to clarify..."A simple OUTER added before the column" would be a
> PostgreSQL-ism? Sort of like Oracle and all the rest have their own
> special traits? Eventually, the plan is to implement OJs as "SQL92 spec",
> and leave our -ism in for backwards compatibility?

Yes, OUTER is an Informix-ism. Oracle uses *=. I think the first is
easier to add and makes more sense for us. *= could be defined by
someone as an operator, and overloading our already complex operator
code to do *= for OUTER may be too complex for people to understand.

It would be:

SELECT *
FROM tab1, OUTER tab2
WHERE tab1.col1 = tab2.col2

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