'OUTER JOIN' Class Notes

Spring 2000

This join of parcels and fires drops out any parcel that didn't have a fire:

select p.parcelid, add1, add2, count(fdate) fires
        from parcels p, fires f
       where p.parcelid = f.parcelid
    group by p.parcelid, add1, add2;

This set of queries will save the results of the previous join in a table and then add in one row for every parcel in the parcel table that didn't have a fire:

create table t1holdf as
select p.parcelid, add1, add2, count(fdate) fires
    from parcels p, fires f
   where p.parcelid = f.parcelid
   group by p.parcelid, add1, add2;
insert into t1holdf
select parcelid, add1, add2, 0
    from parcels
   where parcelid NOT IN (select parcelid from fires);

Now, here's an 'outer join' SQL statement that redoes the original query in a way that adds
in the rows for parcels without fires (just like the two-step create/insert statements above). (We've added an additional column--the sum of the estimated fire losses--so you see how NULLs are handled).

      select p.parcelid, add1, add2, count(fdate) fires, sum(estloss)
        from parcels p, fires f
       where p.parcelid = f.parcelid (+)
    group by p.parcelid, add1, add2;

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Written by Joseph Ferreira, Jr. on 9 Oct. 1997.
Converted to HTML by Thomas H. Grayson on 1 Feb. 2000.
Last modified: 1 February 2000 [thg]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning

'OUTER JOIN' Class Notes

Spring 2000

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Urban Studies and Planning