[sql] How can a LEFT OUTER JOIN return more records than exist in the left table?

I have a very basic LEFT OUTER JOIN to return all results from the left table and some additional information from a much bigger table. The left table contains 4935 records yet when I LEFT OUTER JOIN it to an additional table the record count is significantly larger.

As far as I'm aware it is absolute gospel that a LEFT OUTER JOIN will return all records from the left table with matched records from the right table and null values for any rows which cannot be matched, as such it's my understanding that it should be impossible to return more rows than exist in the left table, but it's happening all the same!

SQL Query follows:

SELECT     SUSP.Susp_Visits.SuspReason, SUSP.Susp_Visits.SiteID
FROM         SUSP.Susp_Visits LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      DATA.Dim_Member ON SUSP.Susp_Visits.MemID = DATA.Dim_Member.MembershipNum

Perhaps I have made a mistake in the syntax or my understanding of LEFT OUTER JOIN is incomplete, hopefully someone can explain how this could be occurring?

Postscript

Thanks for the great answers, my understanding of LEFT OUTER JOINS is now much better, could anyone however suggest a way this query could be modified so that I only get as many records returned as exist in the left table?

This query is purely to generate a report and the duplicate matches simply confuse matters.

/Postscript

if multiple (x) rows in Dim_Member are associated with a single row in Susp_Visits, there will be x rows in the resul set.

It isn't impossible. The number of records in the left table is the minimum number of records it will return. If the right table has two records that match to one record in the left table, it will return two records.

Pay attention if you have a where clause on the "right side' table of a query containing a left outer join... In case you have no record on the right side satisfying the where clause, then the corresponding record of the 'left side' table will not appear in the result of your query....

Table1                Table2
_______               _________
1                      2
2                      2
3                      5
4                      6

SELECT Table1.Id, Table2.Id FROM Table1 LEFT OUTER JOIN Table2 ON Table1.Id=Table2.Id

Results:

1,null
2,2
2,2
3,null
4,null

Each record from the left table will be returned as many times as there are matching records on the right table -- at least 1, but could easily be more than 1.

LEFT OUTER JOIN just like INNER JOIN (normal join) will return as many results for each row in left table as many matches it finds in the right table. Hence you can have a lot of results - up to N x M, where N is number of rows in left table and M is number of rows in right table.

It's the minimum number of results is always guaranteed in LEFT OUTER JOIN to be at least N.

It seems as though there are multiple rows in the DATA.Dim_Member table per SUSP.Susp_Visits row.

Could it be a one to many relationship between the left and right tables?

In response to your postscript, that depends on what you would like.

You are getting (possible) multiple rows for each row in your left table because there are multiple matches for the join condition. If you want your total results to have the same number of rows as there is in the left part of the query you need to make sure your join conditions cause a 1-to-1 match.

Alternatively, depending on what you actually want you can use aggregate functions (if for example you just want a string from the right part you could generate a column that is a comma delimited string of the right side results for that left row.

If you are only looking at 1 or 2 columns from the outer join you might consider using a scalar subquery since you will be guaranteed 1 result.

If you need just any one row from the right side

SELECT SuspReason, SiteID FROM(
    SELECT SUSP.Susp_Visits.SuspReason, SUSP.Susp_Visits.SiteID, ROW_NUMBER()
    OVER(PARTITION BY SUSP.Susp_Visits.SiteID) AS rn
    FROM SUSP.Susp_Visits
    LEFT OUTER JOIN DATA.Dim_Member ON SUSP.Susp_Visits.MemID = DATA.Dim_Member.MembershipNum
) AS t
WHERE rn=1

or just

SELECT SUSP.Susp_Visits.SuspReason, SUSP.Susp_Visits.SiteID
FROM SUSP.Susp_Visits WHERE EXISTS(
    SELECT DATA.Dim_Member WHERE SUSP.Susp_Visits.MemID = DATA.Dim_Member.MembershipNum
)