Re: SQL Problem

Thanks to all who took the time to help me. My problem was one of perception - I was seeing the conditions in the WHERE clause as operating on the complete set created by the joins rather than being integral in the joining process. In other words...I shouldn't have placed a condition on a table in an outer join, because that merely prevents the particular columns in that table appearing in particular result set rows... as opposed to preventing those row as a whole appearing. (If you know what I mean! :0) I hence solved the problem by using a sub-query instead thus: 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 AND order.order_no IN (SELECT DISTINCT order_no FROM ordernotes) ORDER BY order.order_no, orderdetail.line_no Thanks again. -- Mel Mullen ( mel.mullen@mail.com )