Q268906: HOWTO: Filter in a JOIN Condition

Article: Q268906
Product(s): Microsoft FoxPro
Version(s): WINDOWS:5.0,5.0a,6.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbSQL kbvfp500 kbvfp500a kbvfp600 kbGrpDSFox kbDSupport kbCodeSnippet kbSQLProg
Last Modified: 27-JUL-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0a, 6.0 
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SUMMARY
=======

When you are doing OUTER JOINs on tables, you might occasionally want to filter
on the side of the table that would otherwise return NULLs. However, if you
filter by using a WHERE or HAVING clause, you eliminate all the records on the
parent side of the join that do not match the condition.

To get the desired results, you can add the filter condition to the JOIN clause.

MORE INFORMATION
================

As an example, you might want a list of all your customers, but want to pay
special attention to the customers who have spent over $500 in freight.
Typically, the first attempt at this looks similar to the following code, which
you can paste into a .prg file or the Command window:

  lcVersion = VERSION()
  DO CASE
     CASE "5.00" $ lcVersion
        CD HOME() + "samples\data"
     CASE "6.00" $ lcVersion
        CD HOME(2) + "data"
  ENDcase
  SET NULLDISPLAY TO ""

  SELECT customer.cust_id, order_id, freight ;
     FROM customer ;
        LEFT OUTER JOIN orders ON orders.cust_id = customer.cust_id ;
        WHERE orders.freight >= 500.00

The result shows only the customers who have the high freight amount, and omits
all of those with lower amounts. There are ways to get around this by using
UNIONed SELECTs with WHERE...NOT IN clauses, but by far the simplest solution is
to replace the SELECT in the above code with the following:

  SELECT customer.cust_id, order_id, freight ;
     FROM customer ;
        LEFT OUTER JOIN orders ON orders.cust_id = customer.cust_id ;
           AND orders.freight >= 500.00

REFERENCES
==========

For more information about the SELECT - SQL command, please see the Visual
FoxPro Language Reference.

For additional information about filtering OUTER JOINS, click the article number
below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q268022 PRB: SELECT Returns Invalid Rows When Filtering Outer Join on Child
  Table

(c) Microsoft Corporation 2000, All Rights Reserved.
Contributions by Garrett Fitzgerald, Microsoft Corporation


Additional query words:

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Keywords          : kbSQL kbvfp500 kbvfp500a kbvfp600 kbGrpDSFox kbDSupport kbCodeSnippet kbSQLProg 
Technology        : kbVFPsearch kbAudDeveloper kbVFP500 kbVFP600 kbVFP500a
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0,5.0a,6.0
Issue type        : kbhowto

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