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Is LEFT OUTER JOIN expressed as just LEFT JOIN in MySQL syntax? Or are LEFT OUTER JOIN and LEFT JOIN different things in MySQL?

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up vote 6 down vote accepted

Basically they are the same.

LEFT and RIGHT are outer type join. The keyword OUTER is optional, and what this means in this case is that whether you specify it or not makes no difference.

Additional Information,

At the top level there are mainly 3 types of joins:

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Thanks a lot for your help. –  gsc-frank Sep 20 '12 at 1:47
@frankabel you're welcome :D –  John Woo Sep 20 '12 at 1:48
In other DBMSs but not in MySQL, there is also FULL (outer) join. In MySQL (and Postgres and a few others), there is also NATURAL JOIN. –  ypercube Nov 25 '12 at 15:36
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