Which type of join returns all records from the first dataset and only the matching records from the second dataset?

A Left Outer Join is designed to return all records from the first dataset (the left table) and only those records from the second dataset (the right table) that have matching values in the specified join condition. This means that if there are records in the left table that do not have a corresponding match in the right table, those records will still be included in the results, with NULL values filled in for the columns from the right table where no match exists.

This type of join is particularly useful when you want to analyze all entries in the first dataset, regardless of whether there are matches in the second dataset. It allows for comprehensive analysis of the first dataset while also incorporating any relevant information from the second dataset.

Other types of joins serve different purposes. An Inner Join only returns rows that have matching values in both tables. A Right Outer Join returns all records from the second dataset and only matching records from the first dataset. A Full Outer Join combines the logic of both left and right joins, returning all records from both datasets, filling in NULLs where there are no matches. However, in this scenario, the focus is specifically on retrieving all records from the first dataset, which is why the Left Outer Join is the appropriate choice.