Left Outer Joins
Left Outer Joins
connect all of the rows of data in the table with the primary key
with any row in the related table that has a matching foreign key.
All rows
in the “primary” (“left”) table are displayed,
regardless of whether there is a matching record in the related table.
Remember that a
relationship, even with “Referential Integrity” enforced,
may have a record in the primary table that has no matching record in the other
table.
This is not really a problem, as in the case of the “Customer / Orders” example.
It is quite possible for
a customer to have no orders,
but a “Left Outer Join” could find customers who haven’t bought anything,
so the store owner might send them a catalog ?
Or, maybe just know which names to delete from their mailing list to save postage ?