Outer Joins
An outer join does not require each record in the two joined tables to have a matching record. The joined table retains each record—even if no other matching record exists. Outer joins subdivide further into left outer joins, right outer joins, and full outer joins, depending on which table's rows are retained (left, right, or both).
(In this case left and right refer to the two sides of the JOIN keyword.)
No implicit join-notation for outer joins exists in standard SQL.
Read more about this topic: Join (SQL)
Famous quotes containing the words outer and/or joins:
“The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The Peer now spreads the glitt’ring Forfex wide,
T’inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)