I second the recommendation on using ANSI joins. It's much clearer.

However, it's important to remember that for outer joins the results may not be the same between ANSI and non-ANSI syntax. For ANSI syntax, the join logic is applied before the filter logic. For non-ANSI joins, the filter logic is applied before the join logic.

Many articles have been published describing this.

Because of this, I am always suspicious of the creators intent and/or skill when viewing non-ANSI joins.

Larry Ansley

Atlanta, GA