Hi,

I want to know how to use the MATCH condition effectively. Which is more effective - MATCH or JOIN?

Regards,
Vix

It depends, . There are times when getting the information for your report is such that only match will solve the issue. I prefer joins, but then you contend with inner/outer, one to many, and so one. Sometimes though I have to use match as it is the only way to resolve my data selection issues.

Join is generally more efficient if you want data only if records exist on the host file. Use MATCH If you are wanting to merge 2 or more files even if records do not exist on the host (old-or-new), eliminate records that have a matching segment on the "new file" (old-not-new), eliminate records that have a matching segment on the "old file" (new-not-old), keep the records from either file that do not match (old-nor-new). I will use MATCH for the new, old and old-and-new conditions if I am having to manipulate data to get it into the same format, match on more than 2 fields or the merge files have no indexes.