Join lets you combine fields from two files with different structures into a new file.
You can the Join command to compare data from two files, and to identify matched or unmatched records in one or both files. It is commonly used to match data from a transaction file, such as an accounts receivable file, with records in a master file, such as a master customer file.
The Join command has several output options. The output option you choose determines which records are included in the output file. You can use Join to combine data from the two files or to find exceptions.
Although the Join command gives you several include/exclude options that are not available with the Relations command, certain kinds of analyses are more easily performed using Relations.
Analyzer can perform one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many joins. To perform a join, the secondary file must be sorted on the key field. The values in the key field, also called the keys, must occur only once in the secondary file. The primary file may contain duplicate or missing keys.
For more information on the Join command see Join. For more information on comparing the Join and Relations commands see Join Versus Relations.