Creating Combined QueriesSQL queries are combined using the UNION operator. Using UNION, multiple SELECT statements can be specified, and their results can be combined into a single result set. Using UNIONUsing UNION is simple enough. All you do is specify each SELECT statement and place the keyword UNION between each. Let's look at an example. You need a list of all products costing 5 or less. You also want to include all products made by vendors 1001 and 1002, regardless of price. Of course, you can create a WHERE clause that will do this, but this time you'll use a UNION instead. As just explained, creating a UNION involves writing multiple SELECT statements. First look at the individual statements: • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE prod_price <= 5; • Output +---------+---------+------------+ | vend_id | prod_id | prod_price | +---------+---------+------------+ | 1003 | FC | 2.50 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1003 | SLING | 4.49 | | 1003 | TNT1 | 2.50 | +---------+---------+------------+ • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE vend_id IN (1001,1002); • Output +---------+---------+------------+ | vend_id | prod_id | prod_price | +---------+---------+------------+ | 1001 | ANV01 | 5.99 | | 1001 | ANV02 | 9.99 | | 1001 | ANV03 | 14.99 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1002 | OL1 | 8.99 | +---------+---------+------------+ • Analysis The first SELECT retrieves all products with a price of no more than 5. The second SELECT uses IN to find all products made by vendors 1001 and 1002. To combine these two statements, do the following: • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE prod_price <= 5 UNION SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE vend_id IN (1001,1002); • Output +---------+---------+------------+ | vend_id | prod_id | prod_price | +---------+---------+------------+ | 1003 | FC | 2.50 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1003 | SLING | 4.49 | | 1003 | TNT1 | 2.50 | | 1001 | ANV01 | 5.99 | | 1001 | ANV02 | 9.99 | | 1001 | ANV03 | 14.99 | | 1002 | OL1 | 8.99 | +---------+---------+------------+ • Analysis The preceding statements are made up of both of the previous SELECT statements separated by the UNION keyword. UNION instructs MySQL to execute both SELECT statements and combine the output into a single query result set. As a point of reference, here is the same query using multiple WHERE clauses instead of a UNION: • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE prod_price <= 5 OR vend_id IN (1001,1002); In this simple example, the UNION might actually be more complicated than using a WHERE clause. But with more complex filtering conditions, or if the data is being retrieved from multiple tables (and not just a single table), the UNION could have made the process much simpler. UNION RulesAs you can see, unions are very easy to use. But a few rules govern exactly which can be combined:
Aside from these basic rules and restrictions, unions can be used for any data retrieval tasks. Including or Eliminating Duplicate RowsGo back to the preceding section titled "Using UNION" and look at the sample SELECT statements used. You'll notice that when executed individually, the first SELECT statement returns four rows, and the second SELECT statement returns five rows. However, when the two SELECT statements are combined with a UNION, only eight rows are returned, not nine. The UNION automatically removes any duplicate rows from the query result set (in other words, it behaves just as multiple WHERE clause conditions in a single SELECT would). Because vendor 1002 creates a product that costs less than 5, that row was returned by both SELECT statements. When the UNION was used, the duplicate row was eliminated. This is the default behavior of UNION, but you can change this if you so desire. If you do, in fact, want all occurrences of all matches returned, you can use UNION ALL instead of UNION. Look at the following example: • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE prod_price <= 5 UNION ALL SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE vend_id IN (1001,1002); • Output +---------+---------+------------+ | vend_id | prod_id | prod_price | +---------+---------+------------+ | 1003 | FC | 2.50 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1003 | SLING | 4.49 | | 1003 | TNT1 | 2.50 | | 1001 | ANV01 | 5.99 | | 1001 | ANV02 | 9.99 | | 1001 | ANV03 | 14.99 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1002 | OL1 | 8.99 | +---------+---------+------------+ • Analysis Using UNION ALL, MySQL does not eliminate duplicates. Therefore, the preceding example returns nine rows, one of them occurring twice. Tip UNION versus WHERE The beginning of this chapter said that UNION almost always accomplishes the same thing as multiple WHERE conditions. UNION ALL is the form of UNION that accomplishes what cannot be done with WHERE clauses. If you do, in fact, want all occurrences of matches for every condition (including duplicates), you must use UNION ALL and not WHERE. Sorting Combined Query ResultsSELECT statement output is sorted using the ORDER BY clause. When combining queries with a UNION, only one ORDER BY clause may be used, and it must occur after the final SELECT statement. There is very little point in sorting part of a result set one way and part another way, and so multiple ORDER BY clauses are not allowed. The following example sorts the results returned by the previously used UNION: • Input SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE prod_price <= 5 UNION SELECT vend_id, prod_id, prod_price FROM products WHERE vend_id IN (1001,1002) ORDER BY vend_id, prod_price; • Output +---------+---------+------------+ | vend_id | prod_id | prod_price | +---------+---------+------------+ | 1001 | ANV01 | 5.99 | | 1001 | ANV02 | 9.99 | | 1001 | ANV03 | 14.99 | | 1002 | FU1 | 3.42 | | 1002 | OL1 | 8.99 | | 1003 | TNT1 | 2.50 | | 1003 | FC | 2.50 | | 1003 | SLING | 4.49 | +---------+---------+------------+ • Analysis This UNION takes a single ORDER BY clause after the final SELECT statement. Even though the ORDER BY appears to only be a part of that last SELECT statement, MySQL will in fact use it to sort all the results returned by all the SELECT statements. Note Combining Different Tables For the sake of simplicity, all of the examples in this chapter combined queries using the same table. However, everything you learned here also applies to using UNION to combine queries of different tables. ![]() |