Purpose

Return the rows from the left Select statement that are not included in the result of the right Select statement.

Syntax

select_statement 
{EXCEPT [DISTINCT] | MINUS [DISTINCT]}
select_statement

where:

DISTINCT
eliminates duplicate rows from the results.

Notes

  • When using one of these operators, the Select lists for each Select statement must have the same number of column expressions with the same data types and must be specified in the same order.

Example A

The following example has the same number of column expressions, and each column expression, in order, has the same data type.

SELECT last_name, salary, hire_date FROM emp
EXCEPT
SELECT name, pay, birth_date FROM person

Example B

The following example is not valid because the data types of the column expressions are different (salary FROM emp has a different data type than last_name FROM raises). This example does have the same number of column expressions in each Select statement but the expressions are not in the same order by data type.

SELECT last_name, salary FROM emp
EXCEPT
SELECT salary, last_name FROM raises