MS SQL Server - Full Outer Join

In this article, we would like to show you how to do FULL OUTER JOIN in MS SQL Server.

Quick solution:

SELECT * FROM [table1]
FULL JOIN [table2] ON [table2].[column_name] = [table1].[column_name]

Note: 

You might as well write FULL JOIN instead of FULL OUTER JOIN.

Practical example

To show how the FULL OUTER JOIN works, we will use the following tables:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find databases preparation SQL queries.

Example 

In this example, we will select all information about users and departments.

Query:

SELECT * 
FROM [users] 
FULL JOIN [departments] ON [departments].[id] = [users].[department_id]

Output:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE [departments] (
	[id] INT NOT NULL,
	[department_name] VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	[location] VARCHAR(50) NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY ([id])
);

CREATE TABLE [users] (
	[id] INT IDENTITY(1,1),
	[name] VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	[surname] VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	[department_id] INT,
	PRIMARY KEY ([id]),
	FOREIGN KEY ([department_id]) REFERENCES [departments] ([id])
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO [departments]
	([id], [department_name], [location])
VALUES
	(1, 'Sales', 'New York'),
	(2, 'Finance', NULL),
	(3, 'HR', 'Atlanta'),
	(4, 'Purchase', 'New Orlean'),
	(5, 'Operations', 'Boston');
   
INSERT INTO [users]
	( [name], [surname], [department_id])
VALUES
	('John', 'Stewart', 1),
	('Chris', 'Brown', 2),
	('Kate', 'Lewis', 3),
	('Ailisa', 'Gomez', NULL),
	('Gwendolyn', 'James', 2),
	('Simon', 'Collins', 4),
	('Taylor', 'Martin', 2),
	('Andrew', 'Thompson', NULL);