SQL:UNION Query

The SQL UNION query allows you to combine the result sets of 2 or more

SQL SELECT statements. It removes duplicate rows between the various SELECT statements.

Each SQL SELECT statement within the UNION query must have the same number of fields in the result sets with similar data types.

The syntax for the SQL UNION query is:

select field1, field2, . field_n
from tables
UNION
select field1, field2, . field_n
from tables;

SQL UNION Query - Returns single field example

The following is an example of the SQL UNION query that returns one field from multiple SELECT statements (and both fields have the same data type):

select supplier_id
from suppliers
UNION
select supplier_id
from orders;

In this SQL UNION query example, if a supplier_id appeared in both the suppliers and orders table, it would appear once in your result set. The SQL UNION query removes duplicates. If you do notwish to remove duplicates, try using the SQL UNION ALL query.

SQL UNION Query - Using SQL ORDER BY Clause example

The SQL UNION query can use the SQL ORDER BY clause to order the results of the query.

For example:

select supplier_id, supplier_name
from suppliers
where supplier_id > 2000
UNION
select company_id, company_name
from companies
where company_id > 1000
ORDER BY 2;

In this SQL UNION query, since the column names are different between the two

SQL SELECT statements, it is more advantageous to reference the columns in the SQL ORDER BY clause by their position in the result set. In this example, we've sorted the results by supplier_name / company_name in ascending order, as denoted by the "ORDER BY 2".

The supplier_name / company_name fields are in position #2 in the result set.