SQL - EXCEPT Clause

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The SQL EXCEPT clause/operator is used to combine two SELECT statements and returns rows from the first SELECT statement that are not returned by the second SELECT statement. This means EXCEPT returns only rows, which are not available in the second SELECT statement.

Just as with the UNION operator, the same rules apply when using the EXCEPT operator. MySQL does not support the EXCEPT operator.

Syntax

The basic syntax of EXCEPT is as follows.

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

EXCEPT

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

Here, the given condition could be any given expression based on your requirement.

Example

Consider the following two tables.

Table 1 − CUSTOMERS Table is as follows.

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Table 2 − ORDERS table is as follows.

+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+
|OID  | DATE                | CUSTOMER_ID | AMOUNT |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+
| 102 | 2009-10-08 00:00:00 |           3 |   3000 |
| 100 | 2009-10-08 00:00:00 |           3 |   1500 |
| 101 | 2009-11-20 00:00:00 |           2 |   1560 |
| 103 | 2008-05-20 00:00:00 |           4 |   2060 |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+

Now, let us join these two tables in our SELECT statement as shown below.

SQL> SELECT  ID, NAME, AMOUNT, DATE
   FROM CUSTOMERS
   LEFT JOIN ORDERS
   ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID
EXCEPT
   SELECT  ID, NAME, AMOUNT, DATE
   FROM CUSTOMERS
   RIGHT JOIN ORDERS
   ON CUSTOMERS.ID = ORDERS.CUSTOMER_ID;

This would produce the following result.

+----+---------+--------+---------------------+
| ID | NAME    | AMOUNT | DATE                |
+----+---------+--------+---------------------+
|  1 | Ramesh  |   NULL | NULL                |
|  5 | Hardik  |   NULL | NULL                |
|  6 | Komal   |   NULL | NULL                |
|  7 | Muffy   |   NULL | NULL                |
+----+---------+--------+---------------------+

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