>>>What do you think about using a "group by" or a "select distinct" instead of checking in your second section of your union that the records aren't in your first section.
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>>There will be unwanted records if distinct is used because the is a quaranteed match with the lim_def table. The intent is to only use the lim_def data when the lim_txt data does not exist.
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>Albert,
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>Please forgive mre but I do not have the "picture" for this problem here so I will ask a question... Would an outer join take care of this?

No, the issue is that some of the columns need to be populated with values from one source if an inner join can be made, and from another source if and only if the the inner join could not be made.