There are several special operators that serve specific purposes beyond basic comparison and arithmetic operations.
Some of these special operators include:
LIKE Operator:
The LIKE operator is used to search for a specified pattern in a column. It’s commonly used with wildcard characters such as % (matches any sequence of characters) and _ (matches any single character).
SELECT \* FROM Employees WHERE FirstName LIKE 'J%';
IN Operator:
The IN operator is used to specify multiple values in a WHERE clause. It checks if a value matches any value in a list.
SELECT \* FROM Products WHERE Category IN ('Electronics', 'Clothing', 'Books');
BETWEEN Operator:
The BETWEEN operator is used to select values within a specified range. It’s inclusive, meaning it includes both the start and end values.
SELECT \* FROM Sales WHERE SaleDate BETWEEN '2023-01-01' AND '2023-12-31';
IS NULL Operator:
The IS NULL operator is used to check if a column contains a NULL value.
SELECT \* FROM Customers WHERE Email IS NULL;
EXISTS Operator:
The EXISTS operator is used to check if a subquery returns any rows. It returns true if the subquery returns one or more rows, otherwise false.
SELECT \* FROM Orders WHERE EXISTS (SELECT \* FROM OrderDetails WHERE Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID);
UNION Operator:
The UNION operator is used to combine the result sets of two or more SELECT statements. It removes duplicate rows by default.
SELECT City FROM Customers UNION SELECT City FROM Suppliers;
These special operators provide additional flexibility and functionality in SQL queries, allowing you to perform more complex operations and achieve specific requirements.