INTERSECT

Return only rows that appear in both result sets. This set operator identifies the common records shared between two queries.

Syntax

SELECT ...
(INTERSECT [ALL | DISTINCT] | EXCEPT [ALL | DISTINCT] | UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]) SELECT ...
[(INTERSECT [ALL | DISTINCT] | EXCEPT [ALL | DISTINCT] | UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]) SELECT ...]
[ORDER BY [column [, column ...]]]
[LIMIT {[offset,] row_count | row_count OFFSET offset}]

Description

MariaDB has supported INTERSECT (as well as EXCEPT) in addition to UNION since MariaDB 10.3.

All behavior for naming columns, ORDER BY and LIMIT is the same as for UNION.

INTERSECT implicitly supposes a DISTINCT operation.

The result of an intersect is the intersection of right and left SELECT results, i.e. only records that are present in both result sets will be included in the result of the operation.

INTERSECT has higher precedence than UNION and EXCEPT (unless running running in Oracle mode, in which case all three have the same precedence). If possible it will be executed linearly, but if not, it will be translated to a subquery in the FROM clause:

(SELECT a,b FROM t1)
UNION
(SELECT c,d FROM t2)
INTERSECT
(SELECT e,f FROM t3)
UNION
(SELECT 4,4);

will be translated to:

(SELECT a,b FROM t1)
UNION
SELECT c,d FROM
  ((SELECT c,d FROM t2)
   INTERSECT
   (SELECT e,f FROM t3)) dummy_subselect
UNION
(SELECT 4,4)

Parentheses

Current

Parentheses can be used to specify precedence.

< 10.4

MariaDB starting with 10.5.0

ALL/DISTINCT

Current

INTERSECT ALL and INTERSECT 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 employees:

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

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)) INTERSECT (SELECT c FROM t3);
+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    6 |
+------+

(SELECT a FROM t1) UNION ((SELECT b FROM t2) INTERSECT (SELECT c FROM t3));
+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
|    3 |
|    4 |
|    6 |
+------+

See Also

• UNION

• EXCEPT

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

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