Oracle: SELECT * FROM tablea a, tableb b WHERE a.fielda(+)=b.fieldb -- what is (+)?

Question

I cannot understand what the role of the (+) is! (I "inherited" the statement through the automated update process of an application I am maintaining at the moment).

Is this some Oracle-specific operator? Does it have a special name that I can search for? It's kind of hard to google for a plus sign between brackets :)

Answer 1

it is an outer-join operator (old-school).