SELECT DISTINCT and multiple table JOIN

[epl]

Hello all, I new to the forum.

 

I think this question is general SQL but since I am using a postgres server I though I could ask for you guys here.

 

Here is the problem:

 

I have 4 tables to join. They are linked by one column, say ID.

Tab1 has (let's round and reduce to make the example clear) 30 rows.

Tab2 has 20 rows.

Tab3 has 10 rows.

Tab4 has 5 rows.

 

I need to join them using ID column but not duplicating any column that may appear in more than one table.

 

The final table must have 30 rows (the length of Tab1) with null values for columns in that does not have match in the other 3 tables.

 

Aditionally, I need to add extra columns in the created table (say tablejoined), but those columns will come from other tables (say tableA and tableB) that has many, many more rows than these four tables that I want to join and I don't want to add extra rows by doing that.

 

So far I am trying the following code:

 

CREATE TABLE tablejoined AS

SELECT DISTINCT Tab1.*, TabA.field1, TabB.field1

FROM Tab1, tabA, tabB

NATURAL JOIN Tab2;

NATURAL JOIN Tab3;

NATURAL JOIN Tab4;

 

It is running now... but I am not quite sure it will give the result that I want. Would that be better to use LEFT OUTER JOIN ... ON (ID)??

 

I would appreciate if you experts could give me some advise on that.

 

Thank you in advance.

[btherl]

Have you managed to solve this?  I'm asking first since it's such an old topic.