freeCodeCamp/guide/english/sql/sql-union-operator/index.md

title
SQL Union Operator

SQL Union Operator

Description

For this guide we'll discuss the UNION Operator section of the SQL statement.

The UNION Operator is used to combine the results of multiple select statements into one result set.

The SQL statements must have the same number of columns in their Select Statements, and the data types of those columns must also be equivalent.

Basic Example

SQL Statement

SELECT 'aaaaa'
UNION
SELECT 'bbbbbbbbb';

Output

+-----------+
| aaaaa     |
+-----------+
| aaaaa     |
| bbbbbbbbb |
+-----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Example using the student tables

SQL Statement

SELECT StudentID, FullName FROM student WHERE studentID BETWEEN 1 AND 5
UNION
SELECT studentID, studentEmailAddr FROM `student-contact-info` WHERE studentID BETWEEN 7 AND 8;

Output

+-----------+--------------------------------+
| StudentID | FullName                       |
+-----------+--------------------------------+
|         1 | Monique Davis                  |
|         2 | Teri Gutierrez                 |
|         3 | Spencer Pautier                |
|         4 | Louis Ramsey                   |
|         5 | Alvin Greene                   |
|         7 | Maximo.Smith@freeCodeCamp.org  |
|         8 | Michael.Roach@freeCodeCamp.ort |
+-----------+--------------------------------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

SQL UNION ALL Operator

The UNION ALL operator is an extension of the UNION operator that results in A+B of rows in the ouptput assuming A and B are your inputs. The primary difference in UNION ALL is that it doesn't deduplicate rows from A+B. If a given input from A also exists in B, then both occurrences are returned.

Basic Syntax

SQL Statement

SELECT expression1, expression2, ... expression_n
FROM tables
[WHERE conditions]
UNION ALL
SELECT expression1, expression2, ... expression_n
FROM tables
[WHERE conditions];

As with all of these SQL things there is MUCH MORE to them than what's in this introductory guide.

I hope this at least gives you enough to get started.

Please see the manual for your database manager and have fun trying different options yourself.