ASA SQL User's Guide
  Transact-SQL Compatibility
    Writing compatible SQL statements

Compatibility of joins

In Transact-SQL, joins appear in the WHERE clause, using the following syntax:

start of select, update, insert, delete, or subquery
   FROM { table-list | view-list } WHERE [  NOT  ]
   [ table-name.| view name.]column-name
      join-operator
   [ table-name.| view-name.]column_name
   [ {  AND  |  OR  } [  NOT  ]
   [ table-name.| view-name.]column_name
      join-operator
   [ table-name.| view-name.]column-name ]...
end of select, update, insert, delete, or subquery

The join-operator in the WHERE clause may be any of the comparison operators, or may be either of the following outer-join operators:

• *=    Left outer join operator

• =*    Right outer join operator.

Adaptive Server Anywhere supports the Transact-SQL outer-join operators as an alternative to the native SQL/92 syntax. You cannot mix dialects within a query. This rule applies also to views used by a query—an outer-join query on a view must follow the dialect used by the view-defining query.

Adaptive Server Anywhere also provides a SQL/92 syntax for joins other than outer joins, in which the joins are placed in the FROM clause rather than the WHERE clause.

For information about joins in Adaptive Server Anywhere and in the ANSI/ISO SQL standards, see Joins: Retrieving Data from Several Tables, and FROM clause.

For more information on Transact-SQL compatibility of joins, see Transact-SQL outer joins (*= or =*).