SQL issue - how to do multiple outer self-joins

Question

Hi all,
I am having a problem with what I thought would be a rather simple query, but it has me stumped at this point. I have 2 tables, PHONE and PHONE_DETAIL. The PHONE table is just a main list that has ID's, and a country (and other info, but I've simplified it for this example). For each ID in the PHONE table, there could be 0, 1 or many records in the PHONE_DETAIL table - each record in PHONE_DETAIL is designated as either a Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary number. I need to have a query that pulls for ALL records in the PHONE table, joining to the PHONE_DETAIL table, that pivots them out, showing one line per ID. So if one ID from PHONE has 3 records in PHONE_DETAIL (one primary, one secondary, and one tertiary), then I just want to see one resulting line in the query output, showing all 3 together.
Setup:
create table phone (
id number,
country varchar2(20));
insert into phone values (21, 'Australia');
insert into phone values (22, 'Australia');
insert into phone values (23, 'Australia');
insert into phone values (135, 'Australia');
insert into phone values (136, 'Australia');
insert into phone values (137, 'Australia');
create table phone_detail (
phone_id number,
termination_type varchar2(100),
termination_number varchar2(100));
insert into phone_detail values (135, 'Primary', '132-456-7890');
insert into phone_detail values (136, 'Primary', '231-098-8765');
insert into phone_detail values (137, 'Primary', '789-789-7890');
insert into phone_detail values (137, 'Secondary', '234-345-4567');
insert into phone_detail values (137, 'Tertiary', '567-123-1234');
select * from phone;
ID COUNTRY
21 Australia
22 Australia
23 Australia
135 Australia
136 Australia
137 Australia
select * From phone_detail;
PHONE_ID TERMINATION_TYPE TERMINATION_NUMBER
135 Primary 132-456-7890
136 Primary 231-098-8765
137 Primary 789-789-7890
137 Secondary 234-345-4567
137 Tertiary 567-123-1234
And here is the query that I have so far:
SELECT p.ID,
d1.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS primary_number,
d2.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS secondary_number,
d3.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS tertiary_number
FROM PHONE p,
PHONE_DETAIL d1,
PHONE_DETAIL d2,
PHONE_DETAIL d3
WHERE p.id = d1.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d1.termination_type, 'Primary') = 'Primary'
and p.id = d2.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d2.termination_type, 'Secondary') = 'Secondary'
and p.id = d3.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d3.termination_type, 'Tertiary') = 'Tertiary'
AND p.country = 'Australia';
ID PRIMARY_NUMBER SECONDARY_NUMBER TERTIARY_NUMBER
137 789-789-7890 234-345-4567 567-123-1234
23
22
21
As you can see, it is working that it pulls the ID's 21, 22, 23, even though they don't have any associated records in the PHONE_DETAIL table (I want this to happen). However, it is NOT pulling the records for ID 135 or 136, which each have a Primary record in PHONE_DETAIL (but no secondary or tertiary). The only way I can think of at this point is to do a big ugly UNION query, with 3 different queries, but there has got to be a smarter way to do this. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Brad
[email protected]

Answer 1

And I knew this would happen - that I would get it figured out right after I posted here. I just needed to add a few more (+) to the query, like this:
SELECT p.ID,
d1.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS primary_number,
d2.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS secondary_number,
d3.TERMINATION_NUMBER AS tertiary_number
FROM PHONE p,
PHONE_DETAIL d1,
PHONE_DETAIL d2,
PHONE_DETAIL d3
WHERE p.id = d1.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d1.termination_type(+), 'Primary') = 'Primary'
and p.id = d2.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d2.termination_type(+), 'Secondary') = 'Secondary'
and p.id = d3.phone_id(+)
AND nvl(d3.termination_type(+), 'Tertiary') = 'Tertiary'
AND p.country = 'Australia';