distinct / group by assistance.

Hi Everyone,

I am having some issues trying to create the required SQL that will  
allow me to return the results I am after.
I have been trying various incarnations, using group by, sub-queries -  
albeit to no avail - for the past three hours.


Consider the following simple SQL;

select    a.foo,    b.bar,    c.something
fromtable1 a,
inner jointable2 b on b.id =a.id
left outer jointable3 on c.id = a.id

If there a multiple rows of the same id in table1, I get all  
(multiple) rows - as you would expect - of course.

What I need however, is only one row returned per instance a.id that  
is returned by the above query.

I thought of using group by - but there are no calculated fields...  
and the real query contains 32 fields, which according to the errors I  
ran into while trying to get this working, would all need to be  
included in the group by clause.

So my understanding of group by is obviously a little dodgy - and  
obviously not quite what I was expecting.
I tried using a sub query and select distinct a.id..... but that  
didn't exactly help either.

I have deliberately included in my example the fact there is an outer  
join too - I am not sue if that matters or not... but just in case  
thought it prudent to include it here.


Thanks in advance for any help you might have.

Beau.