[Follwing up on String vs Numeric Type
<URL:http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases.ibm-db2/browse_frm/thread/77ece2ac
84980feb/3c58dd32c336fdd7?q=17-way&rnum=1#3c58dd32c336fdd7>]

My DBA slammed this at me when he saw i did that with a 14-way join.
Ha! :)

My excuse is:

One PROCEDURE that has one query, that SELECTs from one TABLE and gets
names off of FKs to 13 lookup TABLEs, so i put it in a join (as opposed
to 13 sub-SELECTs). Originally, i used all the TABLE names, but given
the size of their names, i couldn't see the entire thing on one screen
(in notepad) so i changed the main TABLE to be aliased as Main, and the
lookups as A, B, C, etc.. So my query (basically) looks like

SELECT Main.col1, Main.Col2, Main.A, A.text, Main.B, B.Text etc...
FROM ...
WHERE A.Id = Main.A AND B.Id = Main.B AND etc...

I think it is justified because it is a simple query and this way it is
easier to read (and therefore understand). But feel free to point and
laugh. :)

B.