SQL - ANY, ALL Operators

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The SQL ANY and ALL operators are used to perform a comparison between a single value and a range of values returned by the subquery.

The ANY and ALL operators must be preceded by a standard comparison operator i.e. >, >=, <, <=, =, <>, != and followed by a subquery. The main difference between ANY and ALL is that ANY returns true if any of the subquery values meet the condition whereas ALL returns true if all of the subquery values meet the condition.

The SQL ANY Operator

The ANY operator is used to verify if any single record of a query satisfies the required condition.

This operator returns a TRUE, if the given condition is satisfied for any of the values in the range. If none of the values in the specified range satisfy the given condition, this operator returns false. You can also use another query (subquery) along with this operator.

Syntax

The basic syntax of the SQL - ANY operator is as follows:

Column_name operator ANY (subquery);

Where,

• column_name is the name of a column in the main query.

• operator is a comparison operator such as =, <, >, <=, >=, or <>.

• subquery is a SELECT statement that returns a single column of values.

ANY with '>' Operator

Typically, the ANY operator is used to compare a value with a set of values returned by a subquery, in such cases we can use it with the > (greater than) operator to verify if a particular column value is greater than column value of any of the records returned by the sub query.

Example

To understand it better let us consider the CUSTOMERS table which contains the personal details of customers including their name, age, address and salary etc. as shown below:

CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS (
   ID INT NOT NULL,
   NAME VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL,
   AGE INT NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS CHAR (25),
   SALARY DECIMAL (18, 2),       
   PRIMARY KEY (ID)
); 

Now, insert values into this table using the INSERT statement as follows:

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS VALUES
(1, 'Ramesh', 32, 'Ahmedabad', 2000.00 ),
(2, 'Khilan', 25, 'Delhi', 1500.00 ),
(3, 'Kaushik', 23, 'Kota', 2000.00 ),
(4, 'Chaitali', 25, 'Mumbai', 6500.00 ),
(5, 'Hardik', 27, 'Bhopal', 8500.00 ),
(6, 'Komal', 22, 'Hyderabad', 4500.00 ),
(7, 'Muffy', 24, 'Indore', 10000.00 );

The table will be created as follows:

Now, let us list out the details of all the CUSTOMERS whose SALARY is greater than the SALARY of any customer whose AGE is 32 i.e. Chaitali, Hardik, Komal and Muffy in this case:

SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS 
WHERE SALARY > ANY (SELECT SALARY FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE AGE = 32);

The result obtained is as follows:

ANY with '<' Operator

Similar to the '>' operator, we can use the '<' (less than) operator along with ANY to verify if a particular column value is less than column value of any of the records returned by the sub query.

Example

In here, we are finding the distinct/different age of customers having any salary less than the average salary of all the customers from the CUSTOMERS table previously created:

SELECT DISTINCT AGE FROM CUSTOMERS 
WHERE SALARY < ANY (SELECT AVG(SALARY) FROM CUSTOMERS);

We get the following output while executing the above query:

ANY with '=' Operator

When we use the = (equal to) operator along with ANY, it verifies if a particular column value is equal to the column value of any of the records returned by the sub query.

Example

In the query given below, we are retrieving the details of all the customers whose age is equal to the age of any customer whose name starts with 'K':

SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS 
WHERE AGE = ANY (SELECT AGE FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE NAME LIKE 'K%');

The result produced is as follows:

The SQL ALL Operator

The SQL ALL operator returns all the records of the SELECT statement.

• It returns TRUE if the given condition is satisfied for ALL the values in the range.

• It always returns a Boolean value.

• It is used with SELECT, WHERE and HAVING statements in SQL queries.

• The data type of the values returned from a subquery must be the same as the outer query expression data type.

Syntax

The basic syntax of the SQL ALL operator is as follows:

Column_name operator ALL (subquery);

Where,

• column_name: is the name of a column in the main query.

• operator: is a comparison operator such as =, <, >, <=, >=, or <>.

• subquery: is a SELECT statement that returns a single column of values.

ALL with WHERE Statement

When we use the ALL operator with a WHERE clause, it filters the results of the subquery based on the specified condition.

The WHERE clause in SQL is used to filter rows from a query based on specific conditions. It operates on individual rows in the table, and it allows you to specify conditions that must be met by each row in the data returned by the query.

Example

If we consider the CUSTOMERS table created above,the following query returns the details of all the customers whose salary is not equal to the salary of any customer whose age is 25:

SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS 
WHERE SALARY <> 
ALL (SELECT SALARY FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE AGE = 25);

The output of the above query is as follows:

ALL with HAVING Clause

In SQL, the ALL operator can also be used with the HAVING clause to filter the results of a GROUP BY query based on a condition that applies to all the aggregated values in the group.

Example

The following SQL query is used to obtain the details of all the customers whose salary is less than the average salary:

SELECT NAME, AGE, ADDRESS, SALARY FROM CUSTOMERS 
GROUP BY AGE, SALARY 
HAVING SALARY < ALL (SELECT AVG(SALARY) FROM CUSTOMERS);

Output of the above query is as follows:

Combining ANY and ALL with Other SQL Clauses

The SQL ANY and ALL operators can be combined with other SQL clauses like JOIN, GROUP BY, and ORDER BY to create more advanced queries. This allows you to filter, group, and sort data based on conditions that involve subqueries.

Using ANY and ALL with JOIN

You can combine ANY or ALL with JOIN to compare columns from joined tables against a set of values returned by a subquery.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax to combine ANY and ALL operators with JOIN clause in SQL:

  
SELECT c1.column1, c1.column2, c2.column3  
FROM table1 c1  
JOIN table2 c2 ON c1.id <> c2.id  
WHERE c1.column_name operator ANY|ALL (subquery);  

Example

This query lists customers whose salary is higher than at least one customer living in Delhi. It joins each such customer with Delhi customers to show the comparison address:

  
SELECT DISTINCT c1.NAME, c1.SALARY, c2.ADDRESS AS ComparedAddress
FROM CUSTOMERS c1
JOIN CUSTOMERS c2 ON c1.ID <> c2.ID AND c2.ADDRESS = 'Delhi'
WHERE c1.SALARY > ANY (SELECT SALARY FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE ADDRESS = 'Delhi'); 

We get the output as shown below:

NAME	SALARY	ComparedAddress
Ramesh	2000.00	Delhi
Kaushik	2000.00	Delhi
Chaitali	6500.00	Delhi
Hardik	8500.00	Delhi
Komal	4500.00	Delhi
Muffy	10000.00	Delhi

Using ANY and ALL with GROUP BY

The ANY and ALL operators can be used in conjunction with GROUP BY and HAVING clauses to filter groups based on aggregated values that meet specific conditions.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax to combine ANY and ALL operators with GROUP BY clause in SQL:

  
SELECT column1, AGGREGATE_FUNCTION(column2)  
FROM table  
GROUP BY column1  
HAVING AGGREGATE_FUNCTION(column2) operator ANY|ALL (subquery);  

Example

In this example, we find the age groups where the count of customers is greater than any average count of customers grouped by age:

  
SELECT AGE, COUNT(*) AS CountCustomers
FROM CUSTOMERS
GROUP BY AGE
HAVING COUNT(*) > (
    SELECT AVG(age_count) FROM (
        SELECT COUNT(*) AS age_count
        FROM CUSTOMERS
        GROUP BY AGE
    ) AS subquery
);

Following is the output obtained:

AGE	CountCustomers
25	2

Using ANY and ALL with ORDER BY

Although ANY and ALL operators themselves do not directly affect ordering, you can use them within the WHERE clause of a query that also contains an ORDER BY clause to filter rows before sorting.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax to combine ANY and ALL operators with ORDER BY clause in SQL:

  
SELECT * FROM table  
WHERE column_name operator ANY|ALL (subquery)  
ORDER BY column_name [ASC|DESC];  

Example

Here, we list all customers whose salary is less than any salary of customers older than 30, sorted by salary in descending order:

  
SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS  
WHERE SALARY < ANY (SELECT SALARY FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE AGE > 30)  
ORDER BY SALARY DESC;  

We get the output as shown below:

ID	NAME	AGE	ADDRESS	SALARY
2	Khilan	25	Delhi	1500.00

Differences Between SQL ALL and ANY

Following are some common differences between the ALL and ANY operators in SQL: