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SELECT syntax

docs/source/user-guide/sql/select.md

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SELECT syntax

The queries in DataFusion scan data from tables and return 0 or more rows. Please be aware that column names in queries are made lower-case, but not on the inferred schema. Accordingly, if you want to query against a capitalized field, make sure to use double quotes. Please see this example for clarification. In this documentation we describe the SQL syntax in DataFusion.

DataFusion supports the following syntax for queries: <code class="language-sql hljs">

[ WITH with_query [, ...] ]

SELECT [ ALL | DISTINCT ] select_expr [, ...]

[ FROM from_item [, ...] ]

[ JOIN join_item [, ...] ]

[ WHERE condition ]

[ GROUP BY grouping_element [, ...] ]

[ HAVING condition]

[ QUALIFY condition]

[ UNION [ ALL | select ]

[ ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC ][, ...] ]

[ LIMIT count ]

[ EXCLUDE | EXCEPT ]

Pipe operators

</code>

WITH clause

A with clause allows to give names for queries and reference them by name.

sql
WITH x AS (SELECT a, MAX(b) AS b FROM t GROUP BY a)
SELECT a, b FROM x;

SELECT clause

Example:

sql
SELECT a, b, a + b FROM table

The DISTINCT quantifier can be added to make the query return all distinct rows. By default ALL will be used, which returns all the rows.

sql
SELECT DISTINCT person, age FROM employees

FROM clause

Example:

sql
SELECT t.a FROM table AS t

WHERE clause

Example:

sql
SELECT a FROM table WHERE a > 10

JOIN clause

DataFusion supports INNER JOIN, LEFT OUTER JOIN, RIGHT OUTER JOIN, FULL OUTER JOIN, NATURAL JOIN, CROSS JOIN, LEFT SEMI JOIN, RIGHT SEMI JOIN, LEFT ANTI JOIN, and RIGHT ANTI JOIN.

The following examples are based on this table:

sql
select * from x;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+

INNER JOIN

The keywords JOIN or INNER JOIN define a join that only shows rows where there is a match in both tables.

sql
SELECT * FROM x INNER JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_1;
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 | column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        | 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

LEFT OUTER JOIN

The keywords LEFT JOIN or LEFT OUTER JOIN define a join that includes all rows from the left table even if there is not a match in the right table. When there is no match, null values are produced for the right side of the join.

sql
SELECT * FROM x LEFT JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_2;
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 | column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |          |          |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

RIGHT OUTER JOIN

The keywords RIGHT JOIN or RIGHT OUTER JOIN define a join that includes all rows from the right table even if there is not a match in the left table. When there is no match, null values are produced for the left side of the join.

sql
SELECT * FROM x RIGHT JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_2;
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 | column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|          |          | 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

FULL OUTER JOIN

The keywords FULL JOIN or FULL OUTER JOIN define a join that is effectively a union of a LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN. It will show all rows from the left and right side of the join and will produce null values on either side of the join where there is not a match.

sql
SELECT * FROM x FULL OUTER JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_2;
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 | column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |          |          |
|          |          | 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

NATURAL JOIN

A NATURAL JOIN defines an inner join based on common column names found between the input tables. When no common column names are found, it behaves like a CROSS JOIN.

sql
SELECT * FROM x NATURAL JOIN x y;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+

CROSS JOIN

A CROSS JOIN produces a cartesian product that matches every row in the left side of the join with every row in the right side of the join.

sql
SELECT * FROM x CROSS JOIN x y;
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 | column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        | 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

LEFT SEMI JOIN

The LEFT SEMI JOIN returns all rows from the left table that have at least one matching row in the right table, and projects only the columns from the left table.

sql
SELECT * FROM x LEFT SEMI JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_1;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+

RIGHT SEMI JOIN

The RIGHT SEMI JOIN returns all rows from the right table that have at least one matching row in the left table, and only projects the columns from the right table.

sql
SELECT * FROM x RIGHT SEMI JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_1;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
| 1        | 2        |
+----------+----------+

LEFT ANTI JOIN

The LEFT ANTI JOIN returns all rows from the left table that do not have any matching row in the right table, projecting only the left table’s columns.

sql
SELECT * FROM x LEFT ANTI JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_1;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
+----------+----------+

RIGHT ANTI JOIN

The RIGHT ANTI JOIN returns all rows from the right table that do not have any matching row in the left table, projecting only the right table’s columns.

sql
SELECT * FROM x RIGHT ANTI JOIN x y ON x.column_1 = y.column_1;
+----------+----------+
| column_1 | column_2 |
+----------+----------+
+----------+----------+

GROUP BY clause

Example:

sql
SELECT a, b, MAX(c) FROM table GROUP BY a, b

Some aggregation functions accept optional ordering requirement, such as ARRAY_AGG. If a requirement is given, aggregation is calculated in the order of the requirement.

Example:

sql
SELECT a, b, ARRAY_AGG(c, ORDER BY d) FROM table GROUP BY a, b

HAVING clause

Example:

sql
SELECT a, b, MAX(c) FROM table GROUP BY a, b HAVING MAX(c) > 10

QUALIFY clause

Example:

sql
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY region) AS rk FROM table QUALIFY rk > 1;

UNION clause

Example:

sql
SELECT
    a,
    b,
    c
FROM table1
UNION ALL
SELECT
    a,
    b,
    c
FROM table2

ORDER BY clause

Orders the results by the referenced expression. By default it uses ascending order (ASC). This order can be changed to descending by adding DESC after the order-by expressions.

Examples:

sql
SELECT age, person FROM table ORDER BY age;
SELECT age, person FROM table ORDER BY age DESC;
SELECT age, person FROM table ORDER BY age, person DESC;

LIMIT clause

Limits the number of rows to be a maximum of count rows. count should be a non-negative integer.

Example:

sql
SELECT age, person FROM table
LIMIT 10

EXCLUDE and EXCEPT clause

Excluded named columns from query results.

Example selecting all columns except for age and person:

sql
SELECT * EXCEPT(age, person)
FROM table;
sql
SELECT * EXCLUDE(age, person)
FROM table;

Pipe operators

Some SQL dialects (e.g. BigQuery) support the pipe operator |>. The SQL dialect can be set like this:

sql
set datafusion.sql_parser.dialect = 'BigQuery';

DataFusion currently supports the following pipe operators:

(pipe_where)=

WHERE

sql
select * from range(0,10)
|> where value < 2;
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 0     |
| 1     |
+-------+

(pipe_order_by)=

ORDER BY

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> order by value desc;
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 2     |
| 1     |
| 0     |
+-------+

(pipe_limit)=

LIMIT

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> order by value desc
|> limit 1;
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 2     |
+-------+

(pipe_select)=

SELECT

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> select value + 10;
+---------------------------+
| range().value + Int64(10) |
+---------------------------+
| 10                        |
| 11                        |
| 12                        |
+---------------------------+

(pipe_extend)=

EXTEND

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> extend -value AS minus_value;
+-------+-------------+
| value | minus_value |
+-------+-------------+
| 0     | 0           |
| 1     | -1          |
| 2     | -2          |
+-------+-------------+

(pipe_as)=

AS

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> as my_range
|> SELECT my_range.value;
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 0     |
| 1     |
| 2     |
+-------+

(pipe_union)=

UNION

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> union all (
  select * from range(3,6)
);
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 0     |
| 1     |
| 2     |
| 3     |
| 4     |
| 5     |
+-------+

(pipe_intersect)=

INTERSECT

sql
select * from range(0,100)
|> INTERSECT DISTINCT (
  select 3
);
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 3     |
+-------+

(pipe_except)=

EXCEPT

sql
select * from range(0,10)
|> EXCEPT DISTINCT (select * from range(5,10));
+-------+
| value |
+-------+
| 0     |
| 1     |
| 2     |
| 3     |
| 4     |
+-------+

(pipe_aggregate)=

AGGREGATE

sql
select * from range(0,3)
|> aggregate sum(value) AS total;
+-------+
| total |
+-------+
| 3     |
+-------+

(pipe_join)=

JOIN

sql
(
  SELECT 'apples' AS item, 2 AS sales
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 'bananas' AS item, 5 AS sales
)
|> AS produce_sales
|> LEFT JOIN
     (
       SELECT 'apples' AS item, 123 AS id
     ) AS produce_data
   ON produce_sales.item = produce_data.item
|> SELECT produce_sales.item, sales, id;
+--------+-------+------+
| item   | sales | id   |
+--------+-------+------+
| apples | 2     | 123  |
| bananas| 5     | NULL |
+--------+-------+------+