SELECT SQL - Language Statements SELECT retrieve rows from a table or view SELECT SELECT [ ALL | DISTINCT [ ON ( expression [, ...] ) ] ] * | expression [ AS output_name ] [, ...] [ FROM from_item [, ...] ] [ WHERE condition ] [ GROUP BY expression [, ...] ] [ HAVING condition [, ...] ] [ { UNION | INTERSECT | EXCEPT } [ ALL ] select ] [ ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC | USING operator ] [, ...] ] [ LIMIT { count | ALL } ] [ OFFSET start ] [ FOR { UPDATE | SHARE } [ OF table_name [, ...] ] [ NOWAIT ] ] where from_item can be one of: [ ONLY ] table_name [ * ] [ [ AS ] alias [ ( column_alias [, ...] ) ] ] ( select ) [ AS ] alias [ ( column_alias [, ...] ) ] function_name ( [ argument [, ...] ] ) [ AS ] alias [ ( column_alias [, ...] | column_definition [, ...] ) ] function_name ( [ argument [, ...] ] ) AS ( column_definition [, ...] ) from_item [ NATURAL ] join_type from_item [ ON join_condition | USING ( join_column [, ...] ) ] SELECT retrieves rows from zero or more tables. The general processing of SELECT is as follows: All elements in the FROM list are computed. (Each element in the FROM list is a real or virtual table.) If more than one element is specified in the FROM list, they are cross-joined together. (See below.) If the WHERE clause is specified, all rows that do not satisfy the condition are eliminated from the output. (See below.) If the GROUP BY clause is specified, the output is divided into groups of rows that match on one or more values. If the HAVING clause is present, it eliminates groups that do not satisfy the given condition. (See and below.) The actual output rows are computed using the SELECT output expressions for each selected row. (See below.) Using the operators UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT, the output of more than one SELECT statement can be combined to form a single result set. The UNION operator returns all rows that are in one or both of the result sets. The INTERSECT operator returns all rows that are strictly in both result sets. The EXCEPT operator returns the rows that are in the first result set but not in the second. In all three cases, duplicate rows are eliminated unless ALL is specified. (See , , and below.) If the ORDER BY clause is specified, the returned rows are sorted in the specified order. If ORDER BY is not given, the rows are returned in whatever order the system finds fastest to produce. (See below.) DISTINCT eliminates duplicate rows from the result. DISTINCT ON eliminates rows that match on all the specified expressions. ALL (the default) will return all candidate rows, including duplicates. (See below.) If the LIMIT or OFFSET clause is specified, the SELECT statement only returns a subset of the result rows. (See below.) If the FOR UPDATE or FOR SHARE clause is specified, the SELECT statement locks the selected rows against concurrent updates. (See below.) You must have SELECT privilege on a table to read its values. The use of FOR UPDATE or FOR SHARE requires UPDATE privilege as well. The FROM clause specifies one or more source tables for the SELECT. If multiple sources are specified, the result is the Cartesian product (cross join) of all the sources. But usually qualification conditions are added to restrict the returned rows to a small subset of the Cartesian product. The FROM clause can contain the following elements: table_name The name (optionally schema-qualified) of an existing table or view. If ONLY is specified, only that table is scanned. If ONLY is not specified, the table and all its descendant tables (if any) are scanned. * can be appended to the table name to indicate that descendant tables are to be scanned, but in the current version, this is the default behavior. (In releases before 7.1, ONLY was the default behavior.) The default behavior can be modified by changing the configuration option. alias A substitute name for the FROM item containing the alias. An alias is used for brevity or to eliminate ambiguity for self-joins (where the same table is scanned multiple times). When an alias is provided, it completely hides the actual name of the table or function; for example given FROM foo AS f, the remainder of the SELECT must refer to this FROM item as f not foo. If an alias is written, a column alias list can also be written to provide substitute names for one or more columns of the table. select A sub-SELECT can appear in the FROM clause. This acts as though its output were created as a temporary table for the duration of this single SELECT command. Note that the sub-SELECT must be surrounded by parentheses, and an alias must be provided for it. function_name Function calls can appear in the FROM clause. (This is especially useful for functions that return result sets, but any function can be used.) This acts as though its output were created as a temporary table for the duration of this single SELECT command. An alias may also be used. If an alias is written, a column alias list can also be written to provide substitute names for one or more attributes of the function's composite return type. If the function has been defined as returning the record data type, then an alias or the key word AS must be present, followed by a column definition list in the form ( column_name data_type , ... ). The column definition list must match the actual number and types of columns returned by the function. join_type One of [ INNER ] JOIN LEFT [ OUTER ] JOIN RIGHT [ OUTER ] JOIN FULL [ OUTER ] JOIN CROSS JOIN For the INNER and OUTER join types, a join condition must be specified, namely exactly one of NATURAL, ON join_condition, or USING (join_column [, ...]). See below for the meaning. For CROSS JOIN, none of these clauses may appear. A JOIN clause combines two FROM items. Use parentheses if necessary to determine the order of nesting. In the absence of parentheses, JOINs nest left-to-right. In any case JOIN binds more tightly than the commas separating FROM items. CROSS JOIN and INNER JOIN produce a simple Cartesian product, the same result as you get from listing the two items at the top level of FROM, but restricted by the join condition (if any). CROSS JOIN is equivalent to INNER JOIN ON (TRUE), that is, no rows are removed by qualification. These join types are just a notational convenience, since they do nothing you couldn't do with plain FROM and WHERE. LEFT OUTER JOIN returns all rows in the qualified Cartesian product (i.e., all combined rows that pass its join condition), plus one copy of each row in the left-hand table for which there was no right-hand row that passed the join condition. This left-hand row is extended to the full width of the joined table by inserting null values for the right-hand columns. Note that only the JOIN clause's own condition is considered while deciding which rows have matches. Outer conditions are applied afterwards. Conversely, RIGHT OUTER JOIN returns all the joined rows, plus one row for each unmatched right-hand row (extended with nulls on the left). This is just a notational convenience, since you could convert it to a LEFT OUTER JOIN by switching the left and right inputs. FULL OUTER JOIN returns all the joined rows, plus one row for each unmatched left-hand row (extended with nulls on the right), plus one row for each unmatched right-hand row (extended with nulls on the left). ON join_condition join_condition is an expression resulting in a value of type boolean (similar to a WHERE clause) that specifies which rows in a join are considered to match. USING (join_column [, ...]) A clause of the form USING ( a, b, ... ) is shorthand for ON left_table.a = right_table.a AND left_table.b = right_table.b .... Also, USING implies that only one of each pair of equivalent columns will be included in the join output, not both. NATURAL NATURAL is shorthand for a USING list that mentions all columns in the two tables that have the same names. The optional WHERE clause has the general form WHERE condition where condition is any expression that evaluates to a result of type boolean. Any row that does not satisfy this condition will be eliminated from the output. A row satisfies the condition if it returns true when the actual row values are substituted for any variable references. The optional GROUP BY clause has the general form GROUP BY expression [, ...] GROUP BY will condense into a single row all selected rows that share the same values for the grouped expressions. expression can be an input column name, or the name or ordinal number of an output column (SELECT list item), or an arbitrary expression formed from input-column values. In case of ambiguity, a GROUP BY name will be interpreted as an input-column name rather than an output column name. Aggregate functions, if any are used, are computed across all rows making up each group, producing a separate value for each group (whereas without GROUP BY, an aggregate produces a single value computed across all the selected rows). When GROUP BY is present, it is not valid for the SELECT list expressions to refer to ungrouped columns except within aggregate functions, since there would be more than one possible value to return for an ungrouped column. The optional HAVING clause has the general form HAVING condition where condition is the same as specified for the WHERE clause. HAVING eliminates group rows that do not satisfy the condition. HAVING is different from WHERE: WHERE filters individual rows before the application of GROUP BY, while HAVING filters group rows created by GROUP BY. Each column referenced in condition must unambiguously reference a grouping column, unless the reference appears within an aggregate function. The presence of HAVING turns a query into a grouped query even if there is no GROUP BY clause. This is the same as what happens when the query contains aggregate functions but no GROUP BY clause. All the selected rows are considered to form a single group, and the SELECT list and HAVING clause can only reference table columns from within aggregate functions. Such a query will emit a single row if the HAVING condition is true, zero rows if it is not true. The SELECT list (between the key words SELECT and FROM) specifies expressions that form the output rows of the SELECT statement. The expressions can (and usually do) refer to columns computed in the FROM clause. Using the clause AS output_name, another name can be specified for an output column. This name is primarily used to label the column for display. It can also be used to refer to the column's value in ORDER BY and GROUP BY clauses, but not in the WHERE or HAVING clauses; there you must write out the expression instead. Instead of an expression, * can be written in the output list as a shorthand for all the columns of the selected rows. Also, one can write table_name.* as a shorthand for the columns coming from just that table. The UNION clause has this general form: select_statement UNION [ ALL ] select_statement select_statement is any SELECT statement without an ORDER BY, LIMIT, FOR UPDATE, or FOR SHARE clause. (ORDER BY and LIMIT can be attached to a subexpression if it is enclosed in parentheses. Without parentheses, these clauses will be taken to apply to the result of the UNION, not to its right-hand input expression.) The UNION operator computes the set union of the rows returned by the involved SELECT statements. A row is in the set union of two result sets if it appears in at least one of the result sets. The two SELECT statements that represent the direct operands of the UNION must produce the same number of columns, and corresponding columns must be of compatible data types. The result of UNION does not contain any duplicate rows unless the ALL option is specified. ALL prevents elimination of duplicates. (Therefore, UNION ALL is usually significantly quicker than UNION; use ALL when you can.) Multiple UNION operators in the same SELECT statement are evaluated left to right, unless otherwise indicated by parentheses. Currently, FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE may not be specified either for a UNION result or for any input of a UNION. The INTERSECT clause has this general form: select_statement INTERSECT [ ALL ] select_statement select_statement is any SELECT statement without an ORDER BY, LIMIT, FOR UPDATE, or FOR SHARE clause. The INTERSECT operator computes the set intersection of the rows returned by the involved SELECT statements. A row is in the intersection of two result sets if it appears in both result sets. The result of INTERSECT does not contain any duplicate rows unless the ALL option is specified. With ALL, a row that has m duplicates in the left table and n duplicates in the right table will appear min(m,n) times in the result set. Multiple INTERSECT operators in the same SELECT statement are evaluated left to right, unless parentheses dictate otherwise. INTERSECT binds more tightly than UNION. That is, A UNION B INTERSECT C will be read as A UNION (B INTERSECT C). Currently, FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE may not be specified either for an INTERSECT result or for any input of an INTERSECT. The EXCEPT clause has this general form: select_statement EXCEPT [ ALL ] select_statement select_statement is any SELECT statement without an ORDER BY, LIMIT, FOR UPDATE, or FOR SHARE clause. The EXCEPT operator computes the set of rows that are in the result of the left SELECT statement but not in the result of the right one. The result of EXCEPT does not contain any duplicate rows unless the ALL option is specified. With ALL, a row that has m duplicates in the left table and n duplicates in the right table will appear max(m-n,0) times in the result set. Multiple EXCEPT operators in the same SELECT statement are evaluated left to right, unless parentheses dictate otherwise. EXCEPT binds at the same level as UNION. Currently, FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE may not be specified either for an EXCEPT result or for any input of an EXCEPT. The optional ORDER BY clause has this general form: ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC | USING operator ] [, ...] expression can be the name or ordinal number of an output column (SELECT list item), or it can be an arbitrary expression formed from input-column values. The ORDER BY clause causes the result rows to be sorted according to the specified expressions. If two rows are equal according to the leftmost expression, the are compared according to the next expression and so on. If they are equal according to all specified expressions, they are returned in an implementation-dependent order. The ordinal number refers to the ordinal (left-to-right) position of the result column. This feature makes it possible to define an ordering on the basis of a column that does not have a unique name. This is never absolutely necessary because it is always possible to assign a name to a result column using the AS clause. It is also possible to use arbitrary expressions in the ORDER BY clause, including columns that do not appear in the SELECT result list. Thus the following statement is valid: SELECT name FROM distributors ORDER BY code; A limitation of this feature is that an ORDER BY clause applying to the result of a UNION, INTERSECT, or EXCEPT clause may only specify an output column name or number, not an expression. If an ORDER BY expression is a simple name that matches both a result column name and an input column name, ORDER BY will interpret it as the result column name. This is the opposite of the choice that GROUP BY will make in the same situation. This inconsistency is made to be compatible with the SQL standard. Optionally one may add the key word ASC (ascending) or DESC (descending) after any expression in the ORDER BY clause. If not specified, ASC is assumed by default. Alternatively, a specific ordering operator name may be specified in the USING clause. ASC is usually equivalent to USING < and DESC is usually equivalent to USING >. (But the creator of a user-defined data type can define exactly what the default sort ordering is, and it might correspond to operators with other names.) The null value sorts higher than any other value. In other words, with ascending sort order, null values sort at the end, and with descending sort order, null values sort at the beginning. Character-string data is sorted according to the locale-specific collation order that was established when the database cluster was initialized. If DISTINCT is specified, all duplicate rows are removed from the result set (one row is kept from each group of duplicates). ALL specifies the opposite: all rows are kept; that is the default. DISTINCT ON ( expression [, ...] ) keeps only the first row of each set of rows where the given expressions evaluate to equal. The DISTINCT ON expressions are interpreted using the same rules as for ORDER BY (see above). Note that the first row of each set is unpredictable unless ORDER BY is used to ensure that the desired row appears first. For example, SELECT DISTINCT ON (location) location, time, report FROM weather_reports ORDER BY location, time DESC; retrieves the most recent weather report for each location. But if we had not used ORDER BY to force descending order of time values for each location, we'd have gotten a report from an unpredictable time for each location. The DISTINCT ON expression(s) must match the leftmost ORDER BY expression(s). The ORDER BY clause will normally contain additional expression(s) that determine the desired precedence of rows within each DISTINCT ON group. The LIMIT clause consists of two independent sub-clauses: LIMIT { count | ALL } OFFSET start count specifies the maximum number of rows to return, while start specifies the number of rows to skip before starting to return rows. When both are specified, start rows are skipped before starting to count the count rows to be returned. When using LIMIT, it is a good idea to use an ORDER BY clause that constrains the result rows into a unique order. Otherwise you will get an unpredictable subset of the query's rows — you may be asking for the tenth through twentieth rows, but tenth through twentieth in what ordering? You don't know what ordering unless you specify ORDER BY. The query planner takes LIMIT into account when generating a query plan, so you are very likely to get different plans (yielding different row orders) depending on what you use for LIMIT and OFFSET. Thus, using different LIMIT/OFFSET values to select different subsets of a query result will give inconsistent results unless you enforce a predictable result ordering with ORDER BY. This is not a bug; it is an inherent consequence of the fact that SQL does not promise to deliver the results of a query in any particular order unless ORDER BY is used to constrain the order. The FOR UPDATE clause has this form: FOR UPDATE [ OF table_name [, ...] ] [ NOWAIT ] The closely related FOR SHARE clause has this form: FOR SHARE [ OF table_name [, ...] ] [ NOWAIT ] FOR UPDATE causes the rows retrieved by the SELECT statement to be locked as though for update. This prevents them from being modified or deleted by other transactions until the current transaction ends. That is, other transactions that attempt UPDATE, DELETE, or SELECT FOR UPDATE of these rows will be blocked until the current transaction ends. Also, if an UPDATE, DELETE, or SELECT FOR UPDATE from another transaction has already locked a selected row or rows, SELECT FOR UPDATE will wait for the other transaction to complete, and will then lock and return the updated row (or no row, if the row was deleted). For further discussion see . To prevent the operation from waiting for other transactions to commit, use the NOWAIT option. SELECT FOR UPDATE NOWAIT reports an error, rather than waiting, if a selected row cannot be locked immediately. Note that NOWAIT applies only to the row-level lock(s) — the required ROW SHARE table-level lock is still taken in the ordinary way (see ). You can use the NOWAIT option of if you need to acquire the table-level lock without waiting. FOR SHARE behaves similarly, except that it acquires a shared rather than exclusive lock on each retrieved row. A shared lock blocks other transactions from performing UPDATE, DELETE, or SELECT FOR UPDATE on these rows, but it does not prevent them from performing SELECT FOR SHARE. It is currently not allowed for a single SELECT statement to include both FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE, nor can different parts of the statement use both NOWAIT and normal waiting mode. If specific tables are named in FOR UPDATE or FOR SHARE, then only rows coming from those tables are locked; any other tables used in the SELECT are simply read as usual. FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE cannot be used in contexts where returned rows can't be clearly identified with individual table rows; for example they can't be used with aggregation. It is possible for a SELECT command using both LIMIT and FOR UPDATE/SHARE clauses to return fewer rows than specified by LIMIT. This is because LIMIT is applied first. The command selects the specified number of rows, but might then block trying to obtain lock on one or more of them. Once the SELECT unblocks, the row might have been deleted or updated so that it does not meet the query WHERE condition anymore, in which case it will not be returned. To join the table films with the table distributors: SELECT f.title, f.did, d.name, f.date_prod, f.kind FROM distributors d, films f WHERE f.did = d.did title | did | name | date_prod | kind -------------------+-----+--------------+------------+---------- The Third Man | 101 | British Lion | 1949-12-23 | Drama The African Queen | 101 | British Lion | 1951-08-11 | Romantic ... To sum the column len of all films and group the results by kind: SELECT kind, sum(len) AS total FROM films GROUP BY kind; kind | total ----------+------- Action | 07:34 Comedy | 02:58 Drama | 14:28 Musical | 06:42 Romantic | 04:38 To sum the column len of all films, group the results by kind and show those group totals that are less than 5 hours: SELECT kind, sum(len) AS total FROM films GROUP BY kind HAVING sum(len) < interval '5 hours'; kind | total ----------+------- Comedy | 02:58 Romantic | 04:38 The following two examples are identical ways of sorting the individual results according to the contents of the second column (name): SELECT * FROM distributors ORDER BY name; SELECT * FROM distributors ORDER BY 2; did | name -----+------------------ 109 | 20th Century Fox 110 | Bavaria Atelier 101 | British Lion 107 | Columbia 102 | Jean Luc Godard 113 | Luso films 104 | Mosfilm 103 | Paramount 106 | Toho 105 | United Artists 111 | Walt Disney 112 | Warner Bros. 108 | Westward The next example shows how to obtain the union of the tables distributors and actors, restricting the results to those that begin with the letter W in each table. Only distinct rows are wanted, so the key word ALL is omitted. distributors: actors: did | name id | name -----+-------------- ----+---------------- 108 | Westward 1 | Woody Allen 111 | Walt Disney 2 | Warren Beatty 112 | Warner Bros. 3 | Walter Matthau ... ... SELECT distributors.name FROM distributors WHERE distributors.name LIKE 'W%' UNION SELECT actors.name FROM actors WHERE actors.name LIKE 'W%'; name ---------------- Walt Disney Walter Matthau Warner Bros. Warren Beatty Westward Woody Allen This example shows how to use a function in the FROM clause, both with and without a column definition list: CREATE FUNCTION distributors(int) RETURNS SETOF distributors AS $$ SELECT * FROM distributors WHERE did = $1; $$ LANGUAGE SQL; SELECT * FROM distributors(111); did | name -----+------------- 111 | Walt Disney CREATE FUNCTION distributors_2(int) RETURNS SETOF record AS $$ SELECT * FROM distributors WHERE did = $1; $$ LANGUAGE SQL; SELECT * FROM distributors_2(111) AS (f1 int, f2 text); f1 | f2 -----+------------- 111 | Walt Disney Of course, the SELECT statement is compatible with the SQL standard. But there are some extensions and some missing features. PostgreSQL allows one to omit the FROM clause. It has a straightforward use to compute the results of simple expressions: SELECT 2+2; ?column? ---------- 4 Some other SQL databases cannot do this except by introducing a dummy one-row table from which to do the SELECT. Note that if a FROM clause is not specified, the query cannot reference any database tables. For example, the following query is invalid: SELECT distributors.* WHERE distributors.name = 'Westward'; PostgreSQL releases prior to 8.1 would accept queries of this form, and add an implicit entry to the query's FROM clause for each table referenced by the query. This is no longer the default behavior, because it does not comply with the SQL standard, and is considered by many to be error-prone. For compatibility with applications that rely on this behavior the configuration variable can be enabled. In the SQL standard, the optional key word AS is just noise and can be omitted without affecting the meaning. The PostgreSQL parser requires this key word when renaming output columns because the type extensibility features lead to parsing ambiguities without it. AS is optional in FROM items, however. In the SQL:2003 standard, an ORDER BY clause may only use result column names or numbers, while a GROUP BY clause may only use expressions based on input column names. PostgreSQL extends each of these clauses to allow the other choice as well (but it uses the standard's interpretation if there is ambiguity). PostgreSQL also allows both clauses to specify arbitrary expressions. Note that names appearing in an expression will always be taken as input-column names, not as result-column names. SQL:2003 uses a slightly different definition which is not entirely upward compatible with SQL-92. In most cases, however, PostgreSQL will interpret an ORDER BY or GROUP BY expression the same way SQL:2003 does. The clauses DISTINCT ON, LIMIT, and OFFSET are not defined in the SQL standard.