EXCEPT Operator
EXCEPT keyword is an operator that is used to retrieve distinct rows from the left query result set that are not present in the right query result set in a given query. It can be useful in finding the difference between two sets of data. The syntax for the EXCEPT operator is given as follows
Syntax:
SELECT column1, column2, …
FROM table1
EXCEPT
SELECT column1, column2, …
FROM table2;
The result set of the query will include all distinct rows from the first query (left) that do not appear in the second query(right).
To get better understanding of the concept we will see an example of the working of EXCEPT operator.
SQL Server EXCEPT Operator
Structured Query Language also known as SQL is a tool for storing, managing, and manipulating relational databases. SQL Server is a popular relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Microsoft, providing a variety of operators to perform different operations on given datasets. One such operator is the EXCEPT operator, which allows us to retrieve distinct rows from the result set of two queries. In this article, we will see the usage of the EXCEPT operator, explore its syntax, required prerequisites, and some practical examples.
Before we see the EXCEPT operator, we need some basic understanding of SQL and relational databases. You can refer to this article to get a basic understanding of the Structured Query Language.