SQL EXCEPT

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:

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:

1. The number of columns must be same in both the queries.
2. The column data types should compatible with each other.
3. 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

-- 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

-- 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

-- 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

-- 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

-- 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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