USER MANUALS

MINUS Operation

The minus operation returns all the rows returned by the first statement except the rows that are also returned by the other queries involved in the operation.

The syntax of this operation is the following:

Syntax of the MINUS operation
<query 1> MINUS <query 2> [ MINUS <query N> MINUS <query N+1> ]

For example, if we have three views with the following contents:

View_A

A

B

1

x

2

b

4

d

View_B

Col_1

Col_2

1

a

2

z

6

f

View_C

Col_1

Col_2

1

a

2

b

5

e

And we execute this query

SELECT * FROM
  (  SELECT A FROM View_A
   MINUS
     SELECT Col_1 AS A
     FROM View_B
   MINUS
     SELECT Col_A AS A FROM View_C)

The result will be the following:

<query>

A

4

The result of this query is the result of the first query without the rows returned by the other queries involved.

The queries that participate in a MINUS query must adhere to the following rules:

  • All the input queries must return the same schema. That is, they must have the same number of fields with the same name.

  • By using brackets (( and )) you can indicate the order in which the minus operations are performed. Note that the view order may affect the results of the view.

    E.g. if the query is like this: <query 1> MINUS <query 2> MINUS <query 3> The Server performs the minus operations between <query 1> and <query 2> and then, between this intermediate result and <query 3>.

    If the query is like this: <query 3> MINUS <query 2> MINUS <query 1> the Server performs the minus operations between <query 3> and <query 2> and then, between this intermediate result and <query 1>. Although in both queries the queries involved are the same, the result may be different.

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