Question

FYI – this query runs from excel. i have prompt fields to set date range.

here is the original working query i got from someone:

SELECT 
   SalesInvoiceItems.FreeTextItem, SalesInvoiceItems.Product,   
   SalesInvoiceItems.ItemDescription, SalesInvoiceItems.Quantity, 
   SalesInvoiceItems.ItemValue, Customers.CustomerId, Customers.CustomerName, 
   SalesInvoices.SalesInvoiceId, SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate, Countries.CountryId, 
   SalesInvoiceItems.ItemType
FROM 
   Winman.dbo.Countries Countries, Winman.dbo.Customers Customers, 
   Winman.dbo.Products Products, Winman.dbo.SalesInvoiceItems SalesInvoiceItems, 
   Winman.dbo.SalesInvoices SalesInvoices
WHERE 
    Customers.Customer = SalesInvoices.Customer 
    AND SalesInvoiceItems.SalesInvoice = SalesInvoices.SalesInvoice 
    AND Customers.Country = Countries.Country 
    AND ((SalesInvoices.SystemType='F') 
    AND (SalesInvoiceItems.ItemType<>'T') 
    AND (SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate>=? And SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate<=?) 
    AND (SalesInvoiceItems.ItemValue<>$0))
ORDER BY 
    SalesInvoiceItems.Quantity DESC

Important bit here is ItemType (it can only be T, wich is excluded, P – for products and N – for free text items)

I needed to add table Products, to retrieve ProductID. Obviously adding below code in WHERE clause:

AND Products.Product = SalesInvoiceItems.Product 

will fail to bring up any free text item, as the aren’t products.

So I rewrote query with JOINs hoping that will solve my problem (bringing up both P and N type of entries):

SELECT 
    Products.ProductId, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.FreeTextItem, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.Product, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.ItemDescription, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.Quantity, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.ItemValue, 
    Customers.CustomerId, 
    Customers.CustomerName, 
    SalesInvoices.SalesInvoiceId, 
    SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate, 
    Countries.CountryId, 
    SalesInvoiceItems.ItemType
FROM 
    Winman.dbo.SalesInvoiceItems AS SalesInvoiceItems 
INNER JOIN 
    Winman.dbo.Products AS Products ON Products.Product = SalesInvoiceItems.Product  
INNER JOIN 
    Winman.dbo.SalesInvoices AS SalesInvoices ON SalesInvoices.SalesInvoice= SalesInvoiceItems.SalesInvoice
INNER JOIN 
    Winman.dbo.Customers AS Customers ON Customers.Customer = SalesInvoices.Customer 
INNER JOIN 
    Winman.dbo.Countries AS Countries ON  Countries.Country = Customers.Country 
WHERE 
    ((SalesInvoices.SystemType='F') 
     AND (SalesInvoiceItems.ItemType<>'T') 
     AND (SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate >= ? And SalesInvoices.EffectiveDate <= ?) 
     AND (SalesInvoiceItems.ItemValue <> $0)
    )
ORDER BY 
    SalesInvoiceItems.Quantity DESC

but this still acts as AND – which ignores free text items! I’m obviously missing something.. how can I bring both products and free text items, despite that free text items don’t have ProductID ?

Answer 1

Your old query is using old style JOIN syntax. It is a good thing to completely abandon this implicit (inner) joining in favor of explicit joining.

When using explicit joins, you now have a choice between INNER and OUTER joins (ref. MSDN).

Inner joins return rows only when there is at least one row from both
tables that matches the join condition. Inner joins eliminate the rows
that do not match with a row from the other table. Outer joins,
however, return all rows from at least one of the tables or views
mentioned in the FROM clause, as long as those rows meet any WHERE or
HAVING search conditions.

So in response to your question, change your INNER JOINs to LEFT JOINs