What is this operand (*= star-equals) in SQL server 2000?

Question

I have a query that I pulled from ms sql 2000 and plugged into a MySql query. It did not work, MySql would choke on the *= operator. In this example I have two varchar colum

Answer 1

In MSSQL, the *= convention in the WHERE clause indicates a join. So what you are really seeing is a LEFT OUTER JOIN between tbl1 and tbl2 on person_name where all the values from tbl1 and the matching values on tbl2 will be returned.