Re: outer join issues

Tom Hart wrote:
> Let me preface this by saying hello SQL list, and I'm an idiot. My SQL
> knowledge is advanced to the point of being able to use a WHERE clause
> basically, so I appreciate your business. Now on to my issue
>
> I have 3 tables I'm trying to use in this query: loan, share and draft
> (for those of you not familiar with credit unions, share and draft are
> savings and checking accounts). What I'm trying to do is get a list of
> all loans that were charged off (ln_chgoff_dt > 0), and any share and
> draft accounts that have the same account number. My query looks
> something like this
>
> SELECT ln_acct_num, ln_num, ln_chrgoff_dt, ln_chrgoff_amt, sh_balance,
> sh_stat_cd, df_balance, df_stat_cd
> FROM loan
> LEFT OUTER JOIN share ON loan.ln_acct_num = share.sh_acct_num
> LEFT OUTER JOIN draft ON loan.ln_acct_num = draft.df_acct_num
> WHERE
> ln_chrgoff_dt > 0
> AND loan.dataset = 0
> AND share.dataset = 0
> AND draft.dataset = 0
> ;
>
> Now the query
> SELECT * FROM loan WHERE ln_chrgoff_dt > 0 AND loan.dataset = 0
> returns 139 rows. Shouldn't the first query return at least that many?
> My understanding is that a LEFT OUTER JOIN will not drop any records
> that are only found in the first table, regardless of whether they match
> records on the second or third table. I end up with 14 results with the
> first query. I know I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what.
> Anybody have a helpful kick in the right direction for me?

My "I looked at this for 20 seconds" guess is that the following
clauses are messing you up.

> AND share.dataset = 0
> AND draft.dataset = 0

The LEFT OUTER JOIN isn't helping you if you're still comparing values
in the JOINed tables in the WHERE clause.

Colin