SQL Problem

Sorry if this is a bit long-winded but... I have 4 tables: orders, orderdetails, ordernotes, and orderdetailnotes. Every order will have at least one orderdetail and the respective notes tables have an optional 1-to-1 relationship with their siblings (i.e. an order record might have a notes record and each detail record might have a notes record). The following query (as part of a report) works fine: SELECT order.order_no, orderdetail.line_no, ordernotes.text,orderdetailnotes.text FROM orders, orderdetails, OUTER ordernottes, OUTER orderdetailnotes WHERE order.order_no = orderdetail.order_no AND order.order_no = ordernotes.order_no AND ordernotes.order_no = orderdetailnotes.order_no AND orderdetail.line_no = orderdetailnotes.line_no ORDER BY order.order_no, orderdetail.line_no This returns all orders with their related order details plus any notes where present. NB: If there are no ordernotes for a given order then I don't want any orderdetailnotes returned either. But now I want to alter the same query to return *only* those orders that have ordernotes, so I try adding the line to the where clause: AND NOT ordernotes.order_no IS NULL This doesn't work. It returns the exact same result set as if I hadn't added it. I then try removing the OUTER from the ordernotes table and this does indeed restrict the orders to only those with notes... but now any orderdetailnotes are missing. Am I going about this the totally wrong way or am I missing something simple? -- Mel Mullen ( mel.mullen@mail.com )