Assuming you're joining on columns with no duplicates, which is by far the most common case:
An inner join of A and B gives the result of A intersect B, i.e. the inner part of a venn diagram intersection.
An outer join of A and B gives the results of A union B, i.e. the outer parts of a venn diagram union.
Examples:
Suppose you have two Tables, with a single column each, and data as follows:
A B
- -
1 3
2 4
3 5
4 6
Note that (1,2) are unique to A, (3,4) are common, and (5,6) are unique to B.
Inner join:
An inner join using either of the equivalent queries gives the intersection of the two tables, i.e. the two rows they have in common.
select *
from a
INNER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
select a.*,b.*
from a,b
where a.a = b.b;
a | b
--+--
3 | 3
4 | 4
Left outer join:
A left outer join will give all rows in A, plus any common rows in B.
select *
from a
LEFT OUTER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
select a.*,b.*
from a,b
where a.a = b.b(+);
a | b
--+-----
1 | null
2 | null
3 | 3
4 | 4
Full outer join:
A full outer join will give you the union of A and B, i.e. All the rows in A and all the rows in B. If something in A doesn't have a corresponding datum in B, then the B portion is null, and vice versa.
select *
from a
FULL OUTER JOIN b on a.a = b.b;
a | b
-----+-----
1 | null
2 | null
3 | 3
4 | 4
null | 6
null | 5