The SQL EXCEPT is one of the Set operator provided by the SQL Server. This is used to return distinct rows from the left hand side query that aren’t output by the right hand side query. Or, we can simply say, SQL except will return all the records from left table, that are not present in right side. Below image will help you to understand the Except in SQL Server.
SQL EXCEPT Syntax
The basic syntax behind the Except in SQL Server is as shown below:
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SELECT Column_Name1, Column_Name2 ......., Column_NameN FROM Table1 EXCEPT SELECT Column_Name1, Column_Name2 ......., Column_NameN FROM Table2 |
The following are the set of rules for except operator in SQL:
- The number of columns must be same in both the queries.
- The column data types should compatible with each other.
- Columns order must be same in all the queries.
In this article we will show you, How to use, or write SQL Except with example. For this, We are going to use two tables (Employ, and Employees 2016) present in our [SQL Tutorial] Database.
From the below screenshot you can observe that, [Employ] table have ten records
And [Employees 2016] table have four records. Remember that, there is only one distinct record (9, Rob, Verhoff) and the remaining records are same.
SQL Except example
The following SQL Query will return all the records from Employ that are not present in Employees 2016 table, and display the result
SQL CODE
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-- Example for Except in SQL Server SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employ] EXCEPT SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employees 2016] |
OUTPUT
Let us alter the table position. It means, SQL Query will return all the records from Employees 2016 table that are not present in Employ table
SQL CODE
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-- Example for Except in SQL Server SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employees 2016] EXCEPT SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employ] |
OUTPUT
Use Where Clause in SQL Except
The following SQL Query will display, How to use the SQL except operator along with the WHERE Clause. In this example, we are combining two statement:
- First result set – It will select all the records from Employ, whose yearly income is greater than or equal to 70000
- Second result set – It will select the records from Employees 2016.
- and the except operator will select all the records from first result set, that are not present in second result set.
T-SQL CODE
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-- Example for Except in SQL Server SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employ] WHERE [YearlyIncome] >= 70000 EXCEPT SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employees 2016] |
OUTPUT
SQL Except Errors
The following SQL Query will display the list of common errors that we encounter, while writing the SQL server except query. For this, We are going to use two tables (Employee, and Employ) present in our [SQL Tutorial] Database.
From the below screenshot you can observe that, [Employee] table have 7 columns, and 14 rows.
Let us see what will happen, when we perform except operation on unequal length of columns.
T-SQL CODE
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-- Example for Except in SQL Server SELECT [FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Education] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] ,[HireDate] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employee] EXCEPT SELECT [ID] ,[FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employ] |
OUTPUT
Hope, you can read the message. Now, let us change the SQL query to select equal number of columns
SQL CODE
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-- Example for Except in SQL SELECT [FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employee] EXCEPT SELECT [FirstName] ,[LastName] ,[Occupation] ,[YearlyIncome] ,[Sales] FROM [SQL Tutorial].[dbo].[Employ] |
OUTPUT
From the above screenshot you can observe that, it is returning 7 records because, except 2, 7, 9, 11 to 14 records, remaining ten records in Employee are also present in Employ table. And our Except operator select only distinct records from Employee.
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