UNION & UNION ALL

Introduction to SQL Server

John MacKintosh

Instructor

SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 3)

+------------+-------------------------+------------|
| album_id   | title                   | artist_id  |
|------------+-------------------------|------------|
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 5          | Big Ones                | 3          |
+------------+----------+---------------------------+

SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 4, 5)

+------------+-------------------------+------------|
| album_id   | title                   | artist_id  |
|------------+-------------------------|------------|
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 6          | Jagged Little Pill      | 4          |
| 7          | Facelift                | 5          |
+------------+-------------------------+------------+

Combining results

SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 3)

UNION

SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 4, 5);

+------------+-------------------------+------------|
| album_id   | title                   | artist_id  |
|------------+-------------------------|------------|
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 5          | Big Ones                | 3          |
| 6          | Jagged Little Pill      | 4          |
| 7          | Facelift                | 5          |
+------------+-------------------------+------------+

Duplicate rows are excluded

UNION ALL

SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 3) 
UNION ALL 
SELECT 
  album_id, 
  title, 
  artist_id 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN (1, 4, 5);

+------------+-------------------------+------------|
| album_id   | title                   | artist_id  |
|------------+-------------------------|------------|
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 5          | Big Ones                | 3          |
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 6          | Jagged Little Pill      | 4          |
| 7          | Facelift                | 5          |
+------------+-------------------------+------------+

Includes duplicate rows

Creating new column names for final results

SELECT 
  album_id AS ALBUM_ID, 
  title AS ALBUM_TITLE, 
  artist_id AS ARTIST_ID 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN(1, 3) 
UNION ALL 
SELECT 
  album_id AS ALBUM_ID, 
  title AS ALBUM_TITLE, 
  artist_id AS ARTIST_ID 
FROM album 
WHERE artist_id IN(1, 4, 5)

+------------+-------------------------+------------|
| ALBUM_ID   | ALBUM_TITLE             | ARTIST_ID  |
|------------+-------------------------|------------|
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 5          | Big Ones                | 3          |
| 1          | For Those About To Rock | 1          |
| 4          | Let There Be Rock       | 1          |
| 6          | Jagged Little Pill      | 4          |
| 7          | Facelift                | 5          |
+------------+-------------------------+------------+

Summary

UNION or UNION ALL: Combines queries from the same table or different tables

If combining data from different tables:

Select the same number of columns in the same order
Columns should have the same data types

If source tables have different column names

Alias the column names

UNION: Discards duplicates (slower to run)

UNION ALL: Includes duplicates (faster to run)

Let's practice!

Introduction to SQL Server