SQL - OR Conjunctive Operators

The SQL AND and OR operators are used to combile multiple conditions to narrow data in an SQL statement. These two operators are called conjunctive operators.

The OR Operator:

The OR operator is used to combine multiple conditions in an SQL statement's WHERE clause.

Syntax:

The basic syntax of OR operator with WHERE clause is as follows:

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition1] OR [condition2]...OR [conditionN]

You can combine N number of conditions using OR operator. For an action to be taken by the SQL statement, whether it be a transaction or query, only any ONE of the conditions separated by the OR must be TRUE.

Example:

Consider CUSTOMERS table is having following records:

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Following is an example which would fetch ID, Name and Salary fields from the CUSTOMERS table where salary is greater than 2000 OR age is less tan 25 years:

SQL> SELECT ID, NAME, SALARY 
FROM CUSTOMERS
WHERE SALARY > 2000 OR age < 25;

This would produce following result:

+----+----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | SALARY   |
+----+----------+----------+
|  3 | kaushik  |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+----------+