Oracle ANY

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Oracle ANY operator to compare a value with a list or subquery.

Introduction to the Oracle ANY operator

The Oracle ANY operator is used to compare a value to a list of values or result set returned by a subquery. The following illustrates the syntax of the ANY operator when it is used with a list or subquery:

operator ANY ( v1, v2, v3)

operator ANY ( subquery) 
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this syntax:

• The ANY operator must be preceded by a comparison operator such as =, !=, >, >=,<, <=.
• The list or subquery must be surrounded by the parentheses.

When you use the ANY operator to compare a value to a list, Oracle expands the initial condition to all elements of the list and uses the OR operator to combine them as shown below:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    table_name
WHERE
    c > ANY (
        v1,
        v2,
        v3
    );
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Oracle performs a transformation of the above query to the following:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    table_name
WHERE
    c > v1
    OR c > v2
    OR c > v3;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

If you use the ANY operator to compare a value with result set returned by a subquery, Oracle uses the EXISTS operator to transform the query to an equivalent one without using the ANY operator. For example, the following statement returns all products whose list price is greater than any list price of products in the category 1:

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price > ANY(
        SELECT
            list_price
        FROM
            products
        WHERE
            category_id = 1
    )
ORDER BY
    product_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Because the query uses a subquery with the ANY operator, Oracle performed a single transformation as shown below:

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products p1
WHERE
    EXISTS(
        SELECT
            list_price
        FROM
            products p2
        WHERE
            category_id = 1
            AND p1.list_price > p2.list_price
    )
ORDER BY
    product_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Note that if the subquery returns no rows, the following condition evaluates to false:

operator ANY (subquery)
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Hence, the whole query returns no rows:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    table_name
WHERE
    col operator ANY(subquery);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In Oracle, the SOME and ANY operators behave exactly the same therefore they are completely interchangeable.

Oracle ANY operator examples

If the subquery returns rows or list has value, the following statements apply to the ANY operator:

1) col = ANY ( list )

The expression evaluates to true if the col matches one or more values in the list, for example:

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price = ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

2) col != ANY(list)

The expression evaluates to true if the col does not match one or more values in the list.

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price != ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1
ORDER BY
    list_price DESC;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

3) col > ANY (list)

The expression evaluates to true if the col is greater than the smallest value in the list.

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price > ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1
ORDER BY
    list_price DESC;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

4) col >= ANY (list)

The expression evaluates to true if the col is greater than or equal to the smallest value in the list.

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price >= ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1
ORDER BY
    list_price DESC; 
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

5) col < ANY (list)

The expression evaluates to true if the col is smaller than the highest value in the list.

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price < ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1
ORDER BY
    list_price DESC;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

6) col <= ANY (list)

The expression evaluates to true if the col is smaller than or equal to the highest value in the list.

SELECT
    product_name,
    list_price
FROM
    products
WHERE
    list_price <= ANY(
        2200,
        2259.99,
        2269.99
    )
    AND category_id = 1
ORDER BY
    list_price DESC;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the Oracle ANY operator to compare a value with a list or subquery.