UPDATE

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Syntax

Single-table syntax:

UPDATE [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] table_reference [PARTITION (partition_list)]
    SET col_name1={expr1|DEFAULT} [, col_name2={expr2|DEFAULT}] ...
    [WHERE where_condition]
    [ORDER BY ...]
    [LIMIT row_count]

Multiple-table syntax:

UPDATE [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] table_references
    SET col_name1={expr1|DEFAULT} [, col_name2={expr2|DEFAULT}] ...
    [WHERE where_condition]

Description

For the single-table syntax, the UPDATE statement updates columns of existing rows in the named table with new values. The SET clause indicates which columns to modify and the values they should be given. Each value can be given as an expression, or the keyword DEFAULT to set a column explicitly to its default value. The WHERE clause, if given, specifies the conditions that identify which rows to update. With no WHERE clause, all rows are updated. If the ORDER BY clause is specified, the rows are updated in the order that is specified. The LIMIT clause places a limit on the number of rows that can be updated.

MariaDB starting with 10.0

The PARTITION clause was introduced in MariaDB 10.0. See for Partition Pruning and Selection details.

For the multiple-table syntax, UPDATE updates rows in each table named in table_references that satisfy the conditions. In this case, ORDER BY and LIMIT cannot be used. An UPDATE can also reference tables which are located in different databases; see Identifier Qualifiers for the syntax.

where_condition is an expression that evaluates to true for each row to be updated.

table_references and where_condition are is specified as described in SELECT.

You need the UPDATE privilege only for columns referenced in an UPDATE that are actually updated. You need only the SELECT privilege for any columns that are read but not modified. See GRANT.

The UPDATE statement supports the following modifiers:

  • If you use the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the UPDATE is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table. This affects only storage engines that use only table-level locking (MyISAM, MEMORY, MERGE). See HIGH_PRIORITY and LOW_PRIORITY clauses for details.
  • If you use the IGNORE keyword, the update statement does not abort even if errors occur during the update. Rows for which duplicate-key conflicts occur are not updated. Rows for which columns are updated to values that would cause data conversion errors are updated to the closest valid values instead.

See also

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