left outer join

Does anyone know the status of outer join
with respect to PostgreSQL 6.4?

I'm in dire need of just LEFT OUTER JOIN
as I need to report which records approx 30,000
per day, no longer exist, which are new, and
which have been updated. The three ways I know
of simulating the affects are too slow:

1. use a UNION clause with NOT IN
2. create a function() to return the missing
field, else NULL
- or -

3. Programmatically determine if the record
does not exist for each record in
question.

If anyone knows the status of outer join queries,
please let me know.

Thanks,

Marcus Mascari (mascarim(at)yahoo(dot)com)

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