# To retrieve the plain id if you used the ugly version:
$book->get_column('author_id');
-If the column containing the foreign key of a relationship
-is nullable, the belongs_to relationship still does the
-right thing. (i.e. C<< $obj->author >> would return C<undef>).
-However you probably want to set the
-L<join_type|DBIx::Class::Relationship::Base/join_type> attribute so that
+If the foreign key column is nullable you probably want to set
+the L<join_type|DBIx::Class::Relationship::Base/join_type> attribute so that
a C<LEFT JOIN> is done. This ensures that relationship traversal works
consistently in all situations. (i.e. resultsets involving C<join> or
C<prefetch> operations). The modified declaration is shown below: