How to select all records from one table that do not exist in another table?

Question

table1 (id, name)
table2 (id, name)

Query:

SELECT name   
FROM table2  
-- that are not in table1 already

Answer 1

SELECT t1.name
FROM table1 t1
LEFT JOIN table2 t2 ON t2.name = t1.name
WHERE t2.name IS NULL

Q: What is happening here?

A: Conceptually, we select all rows from table1 and for each row we attempt to find a row in table2 with the same value for the name column. If there is no such row, we just leave the table2 portion of our result empty for that row. Then we constrain our selection by picking only those rows in the result where the matching row does not exist. Finally, We ignore all fields from our result except for the name column (the one we are sure that exists, from table1).

While it may not be the most performant method possible in all cases, it should work in basically every database engine ever that attempts to implement ANSI 92 SQL

Answer 2

You can either do

SELECT name
FROM table2
WHERE name NOT IN
    (SELECT name 
     FROM table1)

or

SELECT name 
FROM table2 
WHERE NOT EXISTS 
    (SELECT * 
     FROM table1 
     WHERE table1.name = table2.name)

---

See this question for 3 techniques to accomplish this

Answer 3

I don't have enough rep points to vote up froadie's answer. But I have to disagree with the comments on Kris's answer. The following answer:

SELECT name
FROM table2
WHERE name NOT IN
    (SELECT name 
     FROM table1)

Is FAR more efficient in practice. I don't know why, but I'm running it against 800k+ records and the difference is tremendous with the advantage given to the 2nd answer posted above. Just my $0.02.

Answer 4

SELECT <column_list>
FROM TABLEA a
LEFTJOIN TABLEB b 
ON a.Key = b.Key 
WHERE b.Key IS NULL;

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/how-to-join-two-tables-mysql/

Answer 5

This is pure set theory which you can achieve with the minus operation.

select id, name from table1
minus
select id, name from table2

Answer 6

Watch out for pitfalls. If the field Name in Table1 contain Nulls you are in for surprises. Better is:

SELECT name
FROM table2
WHERE name NOT IN
    (SELECT ISNULL(name ,'')
     FROM table1)

Answer 7

Here's what worked best for me.

SELECT *
FROM @T1
EXCEPT
SELECT a.*
FROM @T1 a
JOIN @T2 b ON a.ID = b.ID

This was more than twice as fast as any other method I tried.

Answer 8

You can use EXCEPT in mssql or MINUS in oracle, they are identical according to :

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2008/08/07/sql-server-except-clause-in-sql-server-is-similar-to-minus-clause-in-oracle/

Answer 9

That work sharp for me

SELECT * 
FROM [dbo].[table1] t1
LEFT JOIN [dbo].[table2] t2 ON t1.[t1_ID] = t2.[t2_ID]
WHERE t2.[t2_ID] IS NULL

Answer 10

See query:

SELECT * FROM Table1 WHERE
id NOT IN (SELECT 
        e.id
    FROM
        Table1 e
            INNER JOIN
        Table2 s ON e.id = s.id);

Conceptually would be: Fetching the matching records in subquery and then in main query fetching the records which are not in subquery.

Answer 11

I'm going to repost (since I'm not cool enough yet to comment) in the correct answer....in case anyone else thought it needed better explaining.

SELECT temp_table_1.name
FROM original_table_1 temp_table_1
LEFT JOIN original_table_2 temp_table_2 ON temp_table_2.name = temp_table_1.name
WHERE temp_table_2.name IS NULL

And I've seen syntax in FROM needing commas between table names in mySQL but in sqlLite it seemed to prefer the space.

The bottom line is when you use bad variable names it leaves questions. My variables should make more sense. And someone should explain why we need a comma or no comma.

Answer 12

First define alias of table like t1 and t2. After that get record of second table. After that match that record using where condition:

SELECT name FROM table2 as t2
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM table1 as t1 WHERE t1.name = t2.name)

Answer 13

I tried all solution above but did not work in my case. The following query worked for me.

SELECT name FROM table_1 WHERE name NOT IN (SELECT a.name FROM table_1 AS a 
LEFT JOIN table_2 as b ON a.name = b.name WHERE ANY FURTHER CONDITION );

Answer 14

All the above queries are incredibly slow on big tables. A change of strategy is needed. Here there is the code I used for a DB of mine, you can transliterate changing the fields and table names. This is the strategy: you create two implicit temporary tables and make a union of them. The first temporary table comes from a selection of all the rows of the first original table the fields of which you wanna control that are NOT present in the second original table. The second implicit temporary table contains all the rows of the two original tables that have a match on identical values of the column/field you wanna control. The result of the union is a table that has more than one row with the same control field value in case there is a match for that value on the two original tables (one coming from the first select, the second comeing from the second select) and just one row with the control column value in case of the value of the first original table not matching any value of the second original table. You group and count. When the count is 1 there is not match and, finally, you select just the rows with the count equal to 1. Seems not elegant, but it is orders of magnitude faster than all the above solutions. IMPORTANT NOTE: enable the INDEX on the columns to be checked.

SELECT name, source, id
FROM 
(
    SELECT name, "active_ingredients" as source, active_ingredients.id as id 
        FROM active_ingredients

    UNION ALL
        
    SELECT active_ingredients.name as name, "UNII_database" as source, temp_active_ingredients_aliases.id as id 
    FROM active_ingredients
    INNER JOIN temp_active_ingredients_aliases ON temp_active_ingredients_aliases.alias_name = active_ingredients.name

) tbl
GROUP BY name
HAVING count(*) = 1
ORDER BY name