Re: Looking for the correct solution for a generic problem.

Frank Joerdens wrote:

> I've been wondering about this for quite a while now. And I suspect
> there is a bog-standard way that is better than the rather clumsy
> approach I am following now (it feels clumsy anyway). I've got table B
> which is linked to table A as in
>
> CREATE TABLE A (
> id serial,
> foo text,
> );
>
> CREATE TABLE B (
> a_id int references A (id),
> id serial,
> bar text
> );
>
> Now I want to retrieve rows from A as in
>
> SELECT DISTINCT A.foo
> FROM A,B
> WHERE A.foo [matches some criteria]
> OR B.bar [matches some other criteria]
> AND A.id = B.a_id;
>

Perhaps I am clueless, but wouldn't you want to do this

SELECT DISTINCT A.foo
FROM A,B
WHERE ((A.foo =1)
OR (B.bar =2))
AND A.id = B.a_id;

Actually, I think the outerjoin is right.
I had problems like this in the past. I think the other posts answer it.
Mark