Question

I have a database which is in Access (you can get it link text). If I run

SELECT DISTINCT Spl.Spl_No, Spl.Spl_Name FROM Spl INNER JOIN Del     ON Spl.Spl_No = Del.Spl_No WHERE Del.Item_Name <> 'Compass' 

It provides the names of the suppliers that have never delivered a compass. However you can supposedly do this with a sub-query. So far myself and a few others have not been able to get it right.

I did come close with the following, until we added more suppliers then it stopped working

SELECT SPL.SPL_Name FROM SPL LEFT JOIN DEL ON Del.SPL_No = SPL.SPL_No WHERE (DEL.Item_Name<>'Compass') OR (DEL.Item_Name IS NULL) GROUP BY SPL.SPL_Name HAVING COUNT(DEL.SPL_No) = 0 

So the question: Is this possible to do with a sub-query.

Answer 1

Do you mean something like this?

SELECT SPL.SPL_Name FROM SPL WHERE NOT SPL.SPL_no IN   (SELECT SPL_no FROM DEL WHERE DEL.Item_Name = 'Compass')