IN and NOT IN

The IN operator is used to determine whether a given value matches any value in a list of target values. The list of target values can be generated using a subquery.

The IN operator has two formats. One format uses an expression; the other uses a subquery.

Syntax 1

<source-expression [, source-expression]>

[NOT] IN <scalar-expression-list>

Syntax 2

<source-expression [, source-expression]>

[NOT] IN <subquery [, subquery]>

Remarks

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IN is a comparison operator like < (less than) or LIKE.

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IN is valid anywhere a conditional expression can be used. That is, you can place IN in a WHERE clause, a HAVING clause, or a JOIN ON clause, as well as in a CASE expression.

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All the expressions in the target list (<scalar-expression-list>) must be compatible or implicitly castable to the source expression (<source-expression>), or vice versa.

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If the items in the target list are not all of the same type, as in the following example:

ID IN (1000, ‘X’, 12.0) 

the list is translated to the following format:

(left = right1) OR (left = right2) OR (left = right3)

with CASE functions as necessary.

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You can use IN with data types that are comparable or implicitly castable to each other.

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You can combine IN conditions with AND and OR conditions.

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The expression A IN (B, C) is equivalent to the expression A = B or A = C.

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You can use NOT IN to negate the IN condition. That is, NOT IN specifies values that are not in the target list.

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The subquery can return only one column of a compatible data type. However, it can return multiple rows.

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The subquery is run once prior to running the parent query, to populate the list of values for the IN clause.

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You can combine IN conditions using AND and OR conditions.

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IN can take multiple source (left-side) expressions, and multiple values in the subquery. However, the number of values on the right side must match the number of values on the left side.

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Multiple sets of values are allowed.

Example (Syntax 1, Using IN with a String)

SELECT customers.CompanyName, customers.StateOrProvince

FROM /shared/examples/ds_orders/customers customers

WHERE StateOrProvince IN (‘CA’, ‘PA’)

Example (Syntax 1, Using IN with a Number)

SELECT ProductId, ProductName

FROM /shared/examples/ds_inventory/products

WHERE CategoryID IN (5,6)

Example (Syntax 1, Using IN with Date)

SELECT purchaseorders.ShipDate, SupplierID

FROM /shared/examples/ds_inventory/purchaseorders PurchaseOrders

WHERE ShipDate IN (CAST ('2003-02-06' AS DATE), CAST ('2003-02-07' AS DATE) )

Example (Syntax 1, Using IN with AND and OR)

SELECT purchaseorders.ShipDate, SupplierID

FROM /shared/examples/ds_inventory/purchaseorders PurchaseOrders

WHERE ShipDate IN (TO_DATE (‘2003-02-06’)) 

AND ShippingMethodID = 3

OR DatePromised = ‘2003-02-02’ 

OR ShipDate IN (‘2001-05-08’, DATE ‘2001-04-01’, ‘2000-02-25’)

Example (Syntax 2, Using IN)

SELECT Customers.ContactName

FROM /shared/examples/ds_orders/Customers Customers

WHERE City IN (SELECT City  
               FROM /shared/examples/ds_orders/Customers Customers
               WHERE City = ‘New York’) 

Example (Syntax 2, Using NOT IN)

SELECT Customers.ContactName, CompanyName

FROM /shared/examples/ds_orders/Customers Customers

WHERE City 

NOT IN (SELECT City 
        FROM /shared/examples/ds_orders/Customers Customers
        WHERE City = ‘New York’)