Difference between EXISTS and IN in SQL

Question

What is the difference between the EXISTS and IN clause in SQL   When should we use EXISTS  and when should we use IN

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I think     EXISTS is when you need to match the results of query with another subquery  Query 1 results need to be retrieved where SubQuery results match  Kind of a Join   E g  select customers table 1 who have placed orders table 2 too IN is to retrieve if the value of a specific column lies IN a list  1 2 3 4 5  E g  Select customers who lie in the following zipcodes i e  zip code values lies in        list    When to use one over the other    when you feel it reads appropriately  Communicates intent better

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My understand is both should be the same as long as we are not dealing with NULL values    The same reason why the query does not return the value for   NULL vs is NULL   http   sqlinthewild co za index php 2010 02 18 not-exists-vs-not-in    As for as boolean vs comparator argument goes  to generate a boolean both values needs to be compared and that is how any if condition works So i fail to understand how IN and EXISTS behave differently

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If you are using the IN operator  the SQL engine will scan all records fetched from the inner query  On the other hand if we are using EXISTS  the SQL engine will stop the scanning process as soon as it found a match

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I believe this has a straightforward answer  Why don t you check it from the people who developed that function in their systems   If you are a MS SQL developer  here is the answer directly from Microsoft   IN      Determines whether a specified value matches any value in a subquery or a list    EXISTS      Specifies a subquery to test for the existence of rows

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EXISTS Is Faster in Performance than IN  If Most of the filter criteria is in subquery then better to use IN and If most of the filter criteria is in main query then better to use EXISTS

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I found that using EXISTS keyword is often really slow  that is very true in Microsoft Access   I instead use the join operator in this manner   should-i-use-the-keyword-exists-in-sql

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IN supports only equality relations  or inequality when preceded by NOT   It is a synonym to  any    some  e g select       from      t1  where     x in  select x from t2     EXISTS supports variant types of relations  that cannot be expressed using IN  e g  - select       from      t1  where     exists  select    null                    from      t2                    where     t2 x t1 x                          and t2 y gt t1 y                          and t2 z like        t1 z                                And on a different note - The allegedly performance and technical differences between EXISTS and IN may result from specific vendor s implementations limitations bugs  but many times they are nothing but myths created due to lack of understanding of the databases internals  The tables  definition  statistics  accuracy  database configuration and optimizer s version have all impact on the execution plan and therefore on the performance metrics

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Based on rule optimizer     EXISTS is much faster than IN  when the sub-query results is very large  IN is  faster than EXISTS  when the sub-query results is very small    Based on cost optimizer      There is no difference

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Which one is faster depends on the number of queries fetched by the inner query    When your inner query fetching thousand of rows then EXIST would be better choice When your inner query fetching few rows  then IN will be faster   EXIST evaluate on true or false but IN compare multiple value  When you don t know the record is exist or not  your should choose EXIST

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IN   Works on List result set Doesn   t work on subqueries resulting in Virtual tables with multiple columns Compares every value in the result list Performance is comparatively SLOW for larger result set of subquery  EXISTS   Works on Virtual tables Is used with co-related queries Exits comparison when match is found Performance is comparatively FAST for larger result set of subquery

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If a subquery returns more than one value  you might need to execute the outer query- if the values within the column specified in the condition match any value in the result set of the subquery  To perform this task  you need to use the in keyword   You can use a subquery to check if a set of records exists  For this  you need to use the exists clause with a subquery  The exists keyword always return true or false value

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The reason is that the EXISTS operator works based on the    at least found    principle  It returns true and stops scanning table once at least one matching row found   On the other hands  when the IN operator is combined with a subquery  MySQL must process the subquery first  and then uses the result of the subquery to process the whole query      The general rule of thumb is that if the subquery contains a large   volume of data  the EXISTS operator provides a better performance       However  the query that uses the IN operator will perform faster if   the result set returned from the subquery is very small

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EXISTS is much faster than IN when the subquery results is very large  IN is faster than EXISTS when the subquery results is very small   CREATE TABLE t1  id INT  title VARCHAR 20   someIntCol INT  GO CREATE TABLE t2  id INT  t1Id INT  someData VARCHAR 20   GO  INSERT INTO t1 SELECT 1   title 1   5 UNION ALL SELECT 2   title 2   5 UNION ALL SELECT 3   title 3   5 UNION ALL SELECT 4   title 4   5 UNION ALL SELECT null   title 5   5 UNION ALL SELECT null   title 6   5  INSERT INTO t2 SELECT 1  1   data 1  UNION ALL SELECT 2  1   data 2  UNION ALL SELECT 3  2   data 3  UNION ALL SELECT 4  3   data 4  UNION ALL SELECT 5  3   data 5  UNION ALL SELECT 6  3   data 6  UNION ALL SELECT 7  4   data 7  UNION ALL SELECT 8  null   data 8  UNION ALL SELECT 9  6   data 9  UNION ALL SELECT 10  6   data 10  UNION ALL SELECT 11  8   data 11   Query 1  SELECT FROM    t1  WHERE   not  EXISTS  SELECT   FROM t2 WHERE t1 id   t2 t1id    Query 2  SELECT t1    FROM   t1  WHERE  t1 id not in  SELECT  t2 t1id FROM t2     If in t1 your id has null value then Query 1 will find them  but Query 2 cant find null parameters   I mean IN can t compare anything with null  so it has no result for null  but EXISTS can compare everything with null

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As per my knowledge when a subquery returns a NULL value then the whole statement becomes NULL  In that cases we are using the EXITS keyword  If we want to compare particular values in subqueries then we are using the IN keyword

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Difference lies here   select    from abcTable where exists  select null    Above query will return all the records while below one would return empty   select   from abcTable where abcTable ID in  select null    Give it a try and observe the output

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I m assuming you know what they do  and thus are used differently  so I m going to understand your question as  When would it be a good idea to rewrite the SQL to use IN instead of EXISTS  or vice versa   Is that a fair assumption     Edit  The reason I m asking is that in many cases you can rewrite an SQL based on IN to use an EXISTS instead  and vice versa  and for some database engines  the query optimizer will treat the two differently   For instance   SELECT   FROM Customers WHERE EXISTS       SELECT       FROM Orders     WHERE Orders CustomerID   Customers ID     can be rewritten to   SELECT   FROM Customers WHERE ID IN       SELECT CustomerID     FROM Orders     or with a join   SELECT Customers   FROM Customers     INNER JOIN Orders ON Customers ID   Orders CustomerID   So my question still stands  is the original poster wondering about what IN and EXISTS does  and thus how to use it  or does he ask wether rewriting an SQL using IN to use EXISTS instead  or vice versa  will be a good idea

User · Answer

The exists keyword can be used in that way  but really it s intended as a way to avoid counting     --this statement needs to check the entire table select count    from  table  where      --this statement is true as soon as one match is found exists   select   from  table  where         This is most useful where you have if conditional statements  as exists can be a lot quicker than count   The in is best used where you have a static list to pass    select   from  table   where  field  in  1  2  3    When you have a table in an in statement it makes more sense to use a join  but mostly it shouldn t matter  The query optimiser should return the same plan either way  In some implementations  mostly older  such as Microsoft SQL Server 2000  in queries will always get a nested join plan  while join queries will use nested  merge or hash as appropriate  More modern implementations are smarter and can adjust the plan even when in is used

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The Exists keyword evaluates true or false  but IN keyword compare all value in the corresponding sub query column   Another one Select 1 can be use with Exists command  Example   SELECT   FROM Temp1 where exists select 1 from Temp2 where conditions       But IN is less efficient so Exists faster

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EXISTS will tell you whether a query returned any results  e g    SELECT    FROM Orders o  WHERE EXISTS       SELECT        FROM Products p      WHERE p ProductNumber   o ProductNumber    IN is used to compare one value to several  and can use literal values  like this   SELECT    FROM Orders  WHERE ProductNumber IN  1  10  100    You can also use query results with the IN clause  like this   SELECT    FROM Orders  WHERE ProductNumber IN       SELECT ProductNumber      FROM Products      WHERE ProductInventoryQuantity  gt  0

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If you are using the IN operator  the SQL engine will scan all records fetched from the inner query  On the other hand if we are using EXISTS  the SQL engine will stop the scanning process as soon as it found a match

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In certain circumstances  it is better to use IN rather than EXISTS  In general  if the selective predicate is in the subquery  then use IN  If the selective predicate is in the parent query  then use EXISTS   https   docs oracle com cd B19306 01 server 102 b14211 sql 1016 htm i28403

[sql] Difference between EXISTS and IN in SQL?

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