Noami,

To the SQL engine Joins and where clauses are treated in much the same way. Unfortunately in VFP we don't have much control over what is being processed first (except on the FORCE clause, which should be avoided). Filters in whereclauses could be processed before joins or visa versa, just depending on what the optimizer decides.

In SQL server there defenately is NO difference in the two approaches as they result in the same execution plan.

Walter,


>>Hi Naomi,
>>>There should not be difference in performance, IMHO, but I would always prefer JOIN syntax over WHERE syntax for better readability.
>>>
>>>Also JOIN and WHERE behave differently, JOIN happens first, then WHERE.
>>
>>Nope. Filtering normally comes first to speed up by reducing set size (usually the where clause) and then the join-operation.
>>If there is a filter in the join condition SOMETIMES this is also executed during the first step (depends on the smarts of the engine).
>>
>>regards
>>thomas
>
>I'm not sure this is correct (I believe it's incorrect). See message #1401825
>
>There needs to be done a bit of research on the topic to confirm/deny your statement, but I'm busy at the moment - will do the actual research later.