Re: Outer join question?

Hi,

> I have three tables that create a many-to-many relationship between two
> of them. One of them has person data and one of them has contact data,
> and, of course, the other is the bridge table. I want to select all the
> people in the people table with the last name like Smith and join it
> with their contact information. Sometimes they have no contact
> information, but I want to put them on my list anyway. I typically use
> the old syntax of the "where clause" to join tables, so I have two
> questions. Is there a syntax in postgres to do an outer join using the
> "where clause" and what would be the correct syntax to join the three
> tables using the newer standard,
>
> SELECT last_name, first_name, contact
> FROM people
> LEFT (or RIGHT) JOIN bridge ON bridge.peopleid = people.peopleid
> JOIN contact ON bridge.contactid = contact.contactid
> WHERE last_name like 'Smi%';?
>
> The above query is incorrect and I can't seem to get the result I'm
> looking for.

I think both joins should be LEFT.

--
Aurimas