A subquery is a SELECT statement with another SELECT inside it. It looks like this:
SELECT ... /* outer or parent query */ (SELECT ...) /* subquery, inner query or subselect */ ...
There are three possible plans to process a subquery:
flattened. Transform the query to a join, then process as a join.
out-to-in. For each row in the outer query, look up in the inner query.
in-to-out. For each row in the inner query, look up in the outer query.
When processing is out-to-in, the outer query is the driver. When processing is in-to-out, the inner query is the driver.
Table 6-1 shows the SQL Standard requirements and the level of support the Big Eight have for subqueries.
Notes on Table 6-1:
Basic Support column
This column is "Yes" if the DBMS fully supports the [NOT] IN, [NOT] EXISTS, <comparison operator> ANY, and <comparison operator> ALL predicates, and correctly handles subquery situations where the number of rows is zero.
| Basic Support | Row Subquery | Table Subquery | Max Depth | Allow UNION | Types Converted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANSI SQL | Yes | Yes | Yes | N/S | Yes | Yes |
| IBM | Yes | Yes | Yes | 22 | Yes | Yes |
| Informix | Yes | No | No | 23 | No | Yes |
| Ingres | Yes | No | No | 11 | No | Yes |
| InterBase | Yes | No | No | >=32 | No | Yes |
| Microsoft | Yes | No | Yes | >=32 | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL | No | No | No | N/A | N/A | Yes |
| Oracle | Yes | No | No | >=32 | Yes | Yes |
| Sybase | Yes | No | No | 16 | No | Yes |
Row Subquery column
This column is "Yes" if the DBMS supports row subqueries, for example:
SELECT * FROM Table1 WHERE (column1, column2) = (SELECT column1, column2 FROM Table2)
Table Subquery column
This column is "Yes" if the DBMS supports table subqueries, for example:
SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM Table1) AS TableX
Max Depth column
Shows the maximum number of subquery levels supported.
Allow UNION column
This column is "Yes" if the DBMS allows UNION in a subquery.
Types Converted column
This column is "Yes" if the DBMS automatically casts similar data types during comparisons.