title: *= in Sybase SQL
body: <p>I'm maintaining some code that uses a *= operator in a query to a Sybase database and I can't find documentation on it.  Does anyone know what *= does?  I assume that it is some sort of a join.</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * from a, b where a.id *= b.id</code></pre>
  
  <p>I can't figure out how this is different from:</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * from a, b where a.id = b.id</code></pre>