Yes, Yes, Yes..... that pushed me in the right direction.

I got what I wanted with:

SELECT distinct catlink.ab_id, catagory.catagory ;
	FROM catlink ;
	RIGHT OUTER JOIN catagory ;
	ON catagory.catagory = catlink.catagory ;
	and ab_id=57 ;
	order by 2

-or-

SELECT distinct iif(catlink.ab_id = 57, .t., .f.), catagory.catagory ;
	FROM catlink ;
	right OUTER JOIN catagory ;
	ON catagory.catagory = catlink.catagory ;
	and ab_id=57 ;
	order by 2

Now I can use that as a recordsource for a grid with checkbox column to show whether ab_id belongs to a catagory.

Thanks Jim, Mike, and Oleg. I'm happy, that replaced about 30 lines of really ugly code.

>Jim,
>The good place to filter inner table of an outer join is the ON portion of the FROM clause:
>SELECT Catagory.Catagory, CatLink.Ab_id ;
> FROM Catagory LEFT OUTER JOIN CatLink ;
> ON Catagory.Catagory = CatLink.Catagory ;
> and ab_id=52 ;
> INTO CURSOR MyResult
>
>It eliminates Fox-specific LOCATE and will work on the server.
>In ANSI SQL-92 standard the outer join performs first and WHERE clause restricts result set.
>Note that pre SQL-92 syntax works one way on SQL SERVER and SYBASE (performs WHERE first, than JOIN), another on ORACLE.
>
>HTH
>Oleg