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
> ;
try 
AND (share.dateset = 0 OR share.dataset IS NULL)
AND (draft.dataset = 0 OR draft.dataset IS NULL)

because when the left join is utilized, the dateset field will be a 
null, which is not =0 and hence would fail the AND clause in your version

Terry

>
> 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?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>