The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference: 2503
Logged by: Russell Francis
Email address: rfrancis (AT) ev (DOT) net
PostgreSQL version: 8.1.4
Operating system: FreeBSD 6.1
Description: Query results differ based on record count of unrelated
table.
Details:

Summary:

If a SELECT statement contains a table in it's FROM clause which has 0
records in it, the query will not return any results. If a record is added
to the table even though it shouldn't modify the results of query, the query
will return the expected result.

The SQL statements below are a trimmed down test case which duplicates this
issue. The identical SELECT statements return different results depending
on the record count of the unrelated table_b.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

CREATE TABLE table_a
(
ta_col_a INTEGER
);

CREATE TABLE table_b
(
tb_col_a INTEGER
);

INSERT INTO table_a ( ta_col_a ) VALUES ( 50 );

SELECT table_a.* FROM table_a, table_b WHERE table_a.ta_col_a > 0;

INSERT INTO table_b ( tb_col_a ) VALUES ( 50 );

SELECT table_a.* FROM table_a, table_b WHERE table_a.ta_col_a > 0;

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Russell Francis wrote:

table_b is certainly not unrelated, as it appears in the FROM clause.
So the query is correct to not show any result, per definition of
cartesian product.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

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