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Set Operations

The document discusses SQL set operations - union, intersect, and except - and how they correspond to mathematical set operations. It provides examples of using union to find courses taught in Fall 2009 or Spring 2010, intersect to find courses taught in both semesters, and except to find courses taught in Fall 2009 but not Spring 2010. It also notes that union and except by default eliminate duplicate tuples while intersect returns the minimum number of duplicates.

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12 views

Set Operations

The document discusses SQL set operations - union, intersect, and except - and how they correspond to mathematical set operations. It provides examples of using union to find courses taught in Fall 2009 or Spring 2010, intersect to find courses taught in both semesters, and except to find courses taught in Fall 2009 but not Spring 2010. It also notes that union and except by default eliminate duplicate tuples while intersect returns the minimum number of duplicates.

Uploaded by

tiyixe1817
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Set Operations

The SQL operations union, intersect, and except operate on


relations and correspond to the mathematical set-theory operations ∪,
∩, and −.

• The set of all courses taught in the Fall 2009 semester:


select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009;
• The set of all courses taught in the Spring 2010 semester:
select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010;

The Union Operation


To find the set of all courses taught either in Fall 2009 or in Spring
2010, or both, we write:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
Union
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
The union operation automatically eliminates duplicates, unlike the
select clause.

If we want to retain all duplicates, we must write union all in place


of union:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
union all
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);

The Intersect Operation


To find the set of all courses taught in the Fall 2009 as well as in
Spring 2010 we write:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
intersect
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
If we want to retain all duplicates, we must write intersect all in
place of intersect:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
intersect all
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);

The number of duplicate tuples that appear in the result is equal to


the minimum number of duplicates in both c1 and c2.

The Except Operation


To find all courses taught in the Fall 2009 semester but not in the
Spring 2010 semester, we write:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
except
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
If we want to retain duplicates, we must write except all in place of
except:
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009)
except all
(select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
The number of duplicate copies of a tuple in the result is equal to
the number of duplicate copies in c1 minus the number of duplicate
copies in c2, provided that the difference is positive.

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