The Join analysis function brings tables, views, or tables and views together into an intermediate or final analytic data set. The Join analysis provides an interface to several of the most common join mechanisms found in Vantage. The Join analysis is not a complete replacement for SQL approaches when initiating a generic Vantage join.
By default, an INNER join is performed on the specified tables, based on the specified join columns. This means that only the join column row values that appear in all selected tables are returned. The following table lists the additional optional outer join requests that are available:
| Outer Join Request | Description |
|---|---|
| LEFT | Returns rows for all join column values found in the first table, substituting NULL values for selected columns in the other tables that do not have rows with matching join column values. |
| RIGHT | Returns all rows found in the last requested table, substituting NULL values for selected columns in the previous table for rows that do not have matching join column values (or in the cumulative right outer joins preceding it, if more than two tables were selected). |
| FULL | Retains all of the rows from all of the joined tables, substituting NULL values for selected columns in each of the other tables for rows that do not have matching join column values. |