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the query is correct syntax.<br />
so, if you get too many records, then you have a data type issue, probably.<br />
what is the data type (and collation) of the fields &quot;number&quot; in the 2 tables.
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the query is correct syntax.
so, if you get too many records, then you have a data type issue, probably.
what is the data type (and collation) of the fields "number" in the 2 tables.

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The data types are nvarchar and char. &nbsp;That would lead me to believe the collations are different, unicode versus non-unicode.
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The data types are nvarchar and char.  That would lead me to believe the collations are different, unicode versus non-unicode.

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No luck guy, I still have the same number of rows as when I don't cast...
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No luck guy, I still have the same number of rows as when I don't cast...

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What is the output of your query and what is your expected result. give an example.
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What is the output of your query and what is your expected result. give an example.

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Ugh, nevermind, I think I just found it. &nbsp;Thanks for your help!! &nbsp;Points are yours.
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Ugh, nevermind, I think I just found it.  Thanks for your help!!  Points are yours.

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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
I need to write a query that returns all rows from tableA that do not exist in tableB where tableB is in another database. &nbsp;I can't use a simple sub-select so I have to use a left join, I think... &nbsp;The problem is that the query is returning to many rows so I must not have it right.<br />

<pre><code id="code-320336">select *
from tableA a
	left join server.db.owner.tableB a1 on a.number = a1.number
where a1.number is null
</code></pre>
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I need to write a query that returns all rows from tableA that do not exist in tableB where tableB is in another database.  I can't use a simple sub-select so I have to use a left join, I think...  The problem is that the query is returning to many rows so I must not have it right.

Left join issue

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is a suite of relational database management system (RDBMS) products providing multi-user database access functionality.Component services include integration (SSIS), reporting (SSRS), analysis (SSAS), data quality, master data, T-SQL and performance tuning. It includes support for managing XML data and allows a database server to be exposed over web services using Tabular Data Stream (TDS) packets encapsulated within SOAP (protocol) requests.