EXCEPT

Return rows from the first result set that do not appear in the second. This set operator performs a subtraction of two datasets.

EXCEPT

The result of EXCEPT contains all records of the left SELECT result set except records which are in right SELECT result set. In other words, it is the subtraction of two result sets.

Current

MINUS is a synonym when SQL_MODE=ORACLE is set.

< 10.6.1

Syntax

SELECT ...
(INTERSECT [ALL | DISTINCT] | EXCEPT [ALL | DISTINCT] | UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]) 
  SELECT ...
[(INTERSECT [ALL | DISTINCT] | EXCEPT [ALL | DISTINCT] | UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]) 
  SELECT ...]
[ORDER BY [{col_name | expr | position} [ASC | DESC] 
  [, {col_name | expr | position} [ASC | DESC] ...]]]
[LIMIT {[offset,] row_count | row_count OFFSET offset}
| OFFSET start { ROW | ROWS }
| FETCH { FIRST | NEXT } [ count ] { ROW | ROWS } { ONLY | WITH TIES } ]

Brackets for explicit operation precedence are not supported; use a subquery in the FROM clause as a workaround.

Description

MariaDB supports EXCEPT and INTERSECT in addition to UNION.

The queries before and after EXCEPT must be SELECT or VALUES statements.

All behavior for naming columns, ORDER BY and LIMIT is the same as for UNION. Note that the alternative SELECT ... OFFSET ... FETCH syntax is only supported. This allows us to use the WITH TIES clause.

EXCEPT implicitly supposes a DISTINCT operation.

The result of EXCEPT is all records of the left SELECT result except records which are in right SELECT result set, i.e. it is subtraction of two result sets.

EXCEPT and UNION have the same operation precedence and INTERSECT has a higher precedence, unless running in Oracle mode, in which case all three have the same precedence.

Parentheses

Parentheses can be used to specify precedence. Before this, a syntax error would be returned.

MariaDB starting with 10.5.0

ALL/DISTINCT

Current

EXCEPT ALL and EXCEPT DISTINCT . The ALL operator leaves duplicates intact, while the DISTINCT operator removes duplicates. DISTINCT is the default behavior if neither operator is supplied.

< 10.5

Examples

Show customers which are not employees:

(SELECT e_name AS name, email FROM customers)
EXCEPT
(SELECT c_name AS name, email FROM employees);

Difference between UNION, EXCEPT and INTERSECT:

CREATE TABLE seqs (i INT);
INSERT INTO seqs VALUES (1),(2),(2),(3),(3),(4),(5),(6);

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 UNION SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
|    3 |
|    4 |
|    5 |
|    6 |
+------+

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 UNION ALL SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
|    2 |
|    3 |
|    3 |
|    3 |
|    3 |
|    4 |
|    5 |
|    6 |
+------+

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 EXCEPT SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
+------+

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 EXCEPT ALL SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
|    2 |
+------+

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 INTERSECT SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    3 |
+------+

SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i <= 3 INTERSECT ALL SELECT i FROM seqs WHERE i>=3;
+------+
| i    |
+------+
|    3 |
|    3 |
+------+

Parentheses for specifying precedence:

CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE t1 (a INT);
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE t2 (b INT);
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE t3 (c INT);

INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1),(2),(3),(4);
INSERT INTO t2 VALUES (5),(6);
INSERT INTO t3 VALUES (1),(6);

((SELECT a FROM t1) UNION (SELECT b FROM t2)) EXCEPT (SELECT c FROM t3);
+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    2 |
|    3 |
|    4 |
|    5 |
+------+

(SELECT a FROM t1) UNION ((SELECT b FROM t2) EXCEPT (SELECT c FROM t3));
+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
|    3 |
|    4 |
|    5 |
+------+

Here is an example that makes use of the SEQUENCE storage engine and the VALUES statement, to generate a numeric sequence and remove some arbitrary numbers from it:

(SELECT seq FROM seq_1_to_10) EXCEPT VALUES (2), (3), (4);
+-----+
| seq |
+-----+
|   1 |
|   5 |
|   6 |
|   7 |
|   8 |
|   9 |
|  10 |
+-----+

See Also

• UNION

• INTERSECT

• Get Set for Set Theory: UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT in SQL (video tutorial)

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