/** Generate a sequence of <tt>LEFT OUTER JOIN</tt> clauses for the given associations. */
protected final JoinFragment mergeOuterJoins(List associations) throws MappingException {
JoinFragment outerjoin = getDialect().createOuterJoinFragment();
Iterator iter = associations.iterator();
OuterJoinableAssociation last = null;
while (iter.hasNext()) {
OuterJoinableAssociation oj = (OuterJoinableAssociation) iter.next();
if (last != null && last.isManyToManyWith(oj)) {
oj.addManyToManyJoin(outerjoin, (QueryableCollection) last.getJoinable());
} else {
oj.addJoins(outerjoin);
}
last = oj;
}
last = null;
return outerjoin;
}
