Verify Data with a seperate table.

[rash]

I have a table with product data in it. I then have a second table that contains a field the speficies whether the product in the first table is discontinued. So I want to query the first table then check in the second table to see if the item has been discontinued. The discontinued field has a date if the item has been discontinued or has a value of NULL if the item is still in stock.

[Norman_Graham]

... and your question is?

Norm

[rash]

How do you write the query.

[Roger_Ramjet]

Two points, your second table is unneccessary. If all it does is have one row for each row in the main table, then add a field to the main table. If there is some other, wierd reason why the table must exist, then the rows with null in are redundant. Without them, a query with a LEFT JOIN will return Null for rows not present anyway:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/JOIN.html
"If there is no matching record for the right table in the ON or USING part in a LEFT JOIN, a row with all columns set to NULL is used for the right table. You can use this fact to find records in a table that have no counterpart in another table: mysql> SELECT table1.* FROM table1
-> LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
-> WHERE table2.id IS NULL;

This example finds all rows in table1 with an id value that is not present in table2 (that is, all rows in table1 with no corresponding row in table2). This assumes that table2.id is declared NOT NULL. See section 7.2.9 How MySQL Optimizes LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN. "

Using this query would return all items not discontinued.
If you want all rows then the same query without the WHERE table2.id IS NULL will return all rows, empty rows in the second table being filled with null so you know they are not discontinued while discontinued rows have the date instead.