I was messing around with SQL, something that I am not very good with, when I ran into something I felt was strange. The SQL from both statements can be seen below, along with their execution plans. I do not quit understand why the 2nd query came back with 3 rows. I know its from user error, but shouldn't Oracle just ignore the test1 table in the second query? SQL> select a.first_name from test2 a where a.id_number = 2; FIRST_NAME ------------------------------ tom SQL> select a.first_name from test2 a , test1 c where a.id_number = 2; FIRST_NAME ------------------------------ tom tom tom Execution Plan (1st statement) ---------------------------------------------------------- 0 SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=CHOOSE 1 0 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TEST2' Execution Plan (2nd statement) ---------------------------------------------------------- 0 SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=CHOOSE 1 0 NESTED LOOPS 2 1 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TEST1' 3 1 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TEST2' ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------