SQL OR

SQL OR

 

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 SELECTUPDATE, 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.

TRUEFALSENULL
TRUETRUETRUETRUE
FALSETRUEFALSENULL
NULLTRUENULLNULL

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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