Outer joins restrict the set of possible join orders. When the inner member of an outer join is compared to an outer member, the outer member must precede the inner member in the join order. The only join permutations that are considered for outer joins are those that meet this requirement. For example, these two queries perform outer joins, the first using ANSI SQL syntax, the second using Transact-SQL syntax:
select T1.c1, T2.c1, T3.c2, T4.c2 from T4 inner join T1 on T1.c1 = T4.c1 left outer join T2 on T1.c1 = T2.c1 left outer join T3 on T2.c2 = T3.c2
select T1.c1, T2.c1, T3.c2, T4.c2 from T1 , T2, T3, T4 where T1.c1 *= T2.c1 and T2.c2 *= T3.c2 and T1.c1 = T4.c1
The only join orders considered place T1 outer to T2 and T2 outer to T3. The join orders considered by the optimizer are:
T1, T2, T3, T4 T1, T2, T4, T3 T1, T4, T2, T3 T4, T1, T2, T3
