The SQL UNION Operator
The UNION operator is used to combine the result-set of two or more SELECT statements.
- Each SELECT statement within UNION must have the same number of columns
- The columns must also have similar data types
- The columns in each SELECT statement must also be in the same order
UNION Syntax
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table1
UNION
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table2;
UNION ALL Syntax
The UNION operator selects only distinct values by default. To allow duplicate values, use UNION ALL:
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table1
UNION ALL
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table2;
Note: The column names in the result-set are usually equal to the column names in the first SELECT statement in the UNION.