>Is there a document explaining the general order in which SQL SELECT clauses are processed? I understand that the optimizer makes many decisions but there should be some sceleton to the command.

I have asked for such a document, as I have not found one <g>. The only way to be sure of execution order is the "from force" option - but sometimes you will loose some speed, as the dynamic reordering is lost. Also (as you already have found) placement of filters in where or join may have large differences in execution time

regards

thomas