On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 09:09:25AM -0700, John Taylor wrote:
> I have a select statement that goes as follows:
>  
>  SELECT * FROM product prod, prod_alias pa, category cat, company co 
>  WHERE prod.catid = cat.catid 
>  AND prod.coid = co.coid
>  AND prod.prodid = pa.prodid;
>  
>  If possible, I want to change the statement so that I get output
>  regardless of whether there's a match between prod.prodid and
>  pa.prodid.  IOW, if there's a match between prod.prodid and
>  pa.prodid, I want the output from both the product table and the
>  prod_alias table.  if there's no match, I still want the output
>  from product table.  Can I do this in one select statement?

Yes :)

First, rewrite your query to make the JOINs explicit like this:

/* Rewritten query #1 (Q1) */
SELECT prod.*, pa.*, cat.*, co.*  -- *Slightly* better than * :P
FROM
    product prod
JOIN
    prod_alias pa
    ON (prod.prodid = pa.prodid)
JOIN
    category cat
    ON (prod.catid = cat.catid)
JOIN
    company co 
    ON (prod.coid = co.coid)

Then look up LEFT JOIN in the OUTER JOIN part of the manual others
have pointed you to.  What you'll come out with is something like
this:

/* Rewritten query #2 (Q2) */
SELECT prod.*, pa.*, cat.*, co.*  -- *Slightly* better than * :P
FROM
    product prod
LEFT JOIN
    prod_alias pa
    ON (prod.prodid = pa.prodid)
JOIN
    category cat
    ON (prod.catid = cat.catid)
JOIN
    company co 
    ON (prod.coid = co.coid)

When you compart Q1 and Q2 side by side, you'll see that the only
difference between Q1 and Q2 above is the word LEFT.

HTH :)

Cheers,
D
-- 
David Fetter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
                              Skype: davidfetter

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