SQL OR
Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the SQL OR operator to combine two Boolean expressions.
Introduction to SQL OR operator
The SQL OR is a logical operator that combines two boolean expressions. The SQL OR operator returns either true or false depending on the results of expressions.
The OR operator is typically used in the WHERE
clause of the SELECT
, UPDATE
, or DELETE
statement to form a flexible condition.
The following illustrates the syntax of the SQL OR operator:
SELECT column1, column2, ... FROM table1 WHERE expression1 OR expression2;
The following table shows the result of the OR
operator when we compare the true, false, and NULL values.
TRUE | FALSE | NULL | |
TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE |
FALSE | TRUE | FALSE | NULL |
NULL | TRUE | NULL | NULL |
Notice that the OR operator always returns true if either expression is true.
If the database system supports the short-circuit feature, the OR
the operator stops evaluating the remaining parts of the condition as soon as one expression is true.
Note that the short-circuit feature helps the database system save CPU computation by aborting processing the remaining part of a logical expression as soon as it can determine the result. For more information on the short-circuit feature, check it out the SQL AND operator tutorial.
When you use the OR operator with the AND operator, the database system evaluates the OR operator after the AND operator. This is known as the rule of precedence. However, you can use parentheses to change the order of the evaluation.
SQL OR operator examples
We will use the employees
table from the sample database for the demonstration of the OR
operator.
The following statement finds all employees who joined the company in 1997 or 1998.
SELECT first_name, last_name, hire_date FROM employees WHERE YEAR (hire_date) = 1997 OR YEAR (hire_date) = 1998 ORDER BY first_name, last_name;
To find all employees who joined the company in 1997 or 1997 and worked in department id 3, you use both AND
and OR
operators as follows:
SELECT first_name, last_name, hire_date, department_id FROM employees WHERE department_id = 3 AND ( YEAR (hire_date) = 1997 OR YEAR (hire_date) = 1998 ) ORDER BY first_name, last_name;
If you don’t use the parentheses, the query will retrieve employees who joined the company in 1997 and worked in department id 3 or employees who joined the company in 1998 regardless of departments.
This is because the database system evaluates the OR
operator after the AND
operator.
SELECT
first_name,
last_name,
hire_date,
department_id
FROM
employees
WHERE
department_id = 3
AND YEAR (hire_date) = 1997
OR YEAR (hire_date) = 1998
ORDER BY
first_name,
last_name;
If a query uses many OR
operators, it will become difficult to read. To make the query more readable, you can use the IN
operator instead.
For example, the following query finds all employees who joined the company in 1990 or 1999 or 2000.
SELECT
first_name,
last_name,
hire_date
FROM
employees
WHERE
YEAR (hire_date) = 2000
OR YEAR (hire_date) = 1999
OR YEAR (hire_date) = 1990;
You can replace the OR
operators by the IN
operator as follows:
SELECT
first_name,
last_name,
hire_date
FROM
employees
WHERE
YEAR (hire_date) IN (1990, 1999, 2000)
ORDER BY
hire_date;
In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the SQL OR
operator combines two Boolean expressions to form a flexible condition.
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