Use this statement to combine the results of two or more select statements.

Syntax

[ WITH temporary-views ] query-block
  UNION [ ALL | DISTINCT ] query-block
[ ORDER BY [ integer | select-list-expression-name ] [ ASC | DESC ], ... ]
[ FOR XML xml-mode ]
[ OPTION( query-hint, ... ) ]

query-block : see Common elements in SQL syntax

query-hint :
MATERIALIZED VIEW OPTIMIZATION option-value
| FORCE OPTIMIZATION
| option-name = option-value

option-name : identifier

option-value : hostvar (indicator allowed), string, identifier, or number

Parameters

Remarks

The results of several query blocks can be combined into a larger result using UNION. Each query-block must have the same number of items in the select list.

The results of UNION ALL are the combined results of the query blocks. The results of UNION are the same as UNION ALL, except that duplicate rows are eliminated. Eliminating duplicates requires extra processing, so UNION ALL should be used instead of UNION where possible. UNION DISTINCT is identical to UNION.

If corresponding items in two select lists have different data types, SQL Anywhere chooses a data type for the corresponding column in the result and automatically convert the columns in each query-block appropriately.

The first query block of the UNION is used to determine the names to be matched with the ORDER BY clause.

The column names displayed are the same column names that are displayed for the first query-block. An alternative way of customizing result set column names is to use the WITH clause on the query-block.

Permissions

Must have SELECT permission for each query-block.

Side effects

None.

See also

• EXCEPT clause
• INTERSECT clause
• UNION clause
• SELECT statement

Standards and compatibility

Example

List all distinct surnames of employees and customers.

SELECT Surname
FROM Employees
UNION
SELECT Surname
FROM Customers;