SQL FULL OUTER JOIN was Chalk one up for "The Cycle"

Hi

I want to preface the following to say I am now a SQL convert and
most of the time I do file I/O using SQL.(so long Chain,Read et.al.)
I occasionally use the cycle when I need to do a Full Outer Join.
I can simulate FULL OUTER joins with SQL by using LEFT OUTER and
RIGHT OUTER then UNION the results but it gets a bit messy, especially
when more than 3 files are involved. The Cycle is so simple.
The cycle tells me which file/record I currently get with Rec Inds
and if the Key fields Match with MR and if I have had a change in
a Key value (9 levels,10 if incl L0).
Maybe one day when SQL on OS400 does Full Outer Joins it can come
close to the cycle but it still wont have look ahead fields or
Total time processing.
In WIKIPEDIA is a FULL OUTER JOIN example code I hope OS400 can do.
SELECT *
FROM employee
FULL OUTER JOIN department
ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID
Or I may be completely mistaken (as I sometimes am) and someone
can show me how I do a AS400 SQL Full Outer Join.

Frank Kolmann

Cassidy, Alan wrote:

7. RE: Chalk one up for "The Cycle" (Cassidy, Alan)

I am myself moving to do all my new file stuff in SQL now, just
because IMO IBM is going to expand on SQL for database use, not on
DDS, they've said so, therefore it's the curve of time coming this
way. But even there, I find myself often "emulating" the cycle when
it's a report with totals and all that...