SQL IN Statement

SQL > SQL Commands > In

In SQL, there are two uses of the IN keyword, and this section introduces the one that is related to the WHERE clause. When used in this context, we know exactly the value of the returned values we want to see for at least one of the columns. The syntax for using the INkeyword is as follows:

SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "column_name" IN ('value1', 'value2', ...);

The number of values in the parenthesis can be one or more, with each values separated by comma. Values can be numerical or characters. If there is only one value inside the parenthesis, this commend is equivalent to,

WHERE "column_name" = 'value1'

For example, we may wish to select all records for the Los Angeles and the San Diego stores in Table Store_Information,

Table Store_Information

Store_Name	Sales	Txn_Date
Los Angeles	1500	Jan-05-1999
San Diego	250	Jan-07-1999
San Francisco	300	Jan-08-1999
Boston	700	Jan-08-1999

we key in,

SELECT *
FROM Store_Information
WHERE Store_Name IN ('Los Angeles', 'San Diego');

Result:

Store_Name	Sales	Txn_Date
Los Angeles	1500	Jan-05-1999
San Diego	250	Jan-07-1999