SQL Exists Explained in Detail [Practical Examples]

Overview of SQL Exists

SQL Exists is a logical operator used with SQL WHERE clause as the conjunction of the subquery to check whether the result of a subquery (correlated nested query) contains any record or not

The result of SQL Exists is a Boolean value TRUE or FALSE, if the subquery returns one or more records it returns TRUE otherwise it returns FALSE
SQL Exists can be used in a SELECT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement

 

SQL Exists Syntax

SELECT column_name1 | Expression1, column_name2 | Expression2.. FROM table_name
WHERE EXISTS 
(SELECT column_name1 | Expression1..  FROM table_name 
[WHERE condition]
[ORDER BY column_name]
[GROUP BY column_name]
[HAVING condition]);

Here,

• column_name1 | Expression1: It specifies the list of columns or expressions to be retrieved
• table_name : It is the name of the table from which we want to retrieve data, if we want to retrieve data from more than one table we can specify using SQL joins, There must be at least one table listed in the FROM clause.
• WHERE EXISTS: SQL Exist operator specified with where clause to check for the resulting recordset of subquery 
• WHERE condition: It is an optional argument with SQL Select, the records which are satisfied this condition will be retrieved 

 

Return Type of SQL Exists

SQL Exists returns value in Boolean Datatype either TRUE or FALSE

 

Examples of SQL Exists

Consider the hospital management database with four tables patient, doctor, laboratory, and bill to perform practical examples of SQL Exists
Patient Table

Doctor Table

Bill Table

Laboratory Table

 

SQL Exists compare with Null value

Example 1: Write SQL query to display patient details with the null condition to be compared with SQL Exists

SELECT patient_id, name, age, gender, address, city, disease, doctor_id FROM patient
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT NULL AS 'Null value')

• In the above query, the subquery returned a result set that contains NULL which causes the EXISTS operator to evaluate to TRUE
• When we execute the above query, the result will contains all records of patient table

OUTPUT:

 

SQL Exists with subquery returns more than one records

Example 2: Write SQL query to display whose patient details whose data exist in laboratory table

SELECT patient_id, name, age, gender, address, city, disease, doctor_id FROM patient
WHERE EXISTS 
(SELECT lab_no, patient_id, doctor_id, date, amount FROM laboratory
WHERE (patient_id = patient.patient_id))

• In the above query, the subquery will return each patient’s laboratory records whose patient id matches with the patient table’s patient id
• SQL Exists with where clause in the outer query will check for TRUE and FALSE value as subquery returns more than one record, where exist will be true

OUTPUT:

 

SQL Exists with SQL JOIN

Example 3: Write SQL query to display patient information with their disease and doctor name if that patient record exists in laboratory table

SELECT patient.name AS 'Patient Name', patient.age AS 'Patient Age', patient.disease, doctor.name AS 'Doctor Name'
FROM patient 
LEFT OUTER JOIN doctor ON patient.doctor_id = doctor.doctor_id
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT  lab_no, patient_id, doctor_id, date, amount FROM laboratory WHERE (patient_id = patient.patient_id))

• In the above query, the subquery will returns each patient’s laboratory records whose patient id is matches with patient table’s patient id
• In the outer query we have use SQL Left outer join is used to get combine record of both the table patient and doctor
• SQL Exists with where clause in the outer query will check for TRUE and FALSE value , subquery will returns record set so the where condition will be true

OUTPUT:

 

SQL Exists with FALSE condition

Example 4: Write SQL query to retrieve patient information with doctor name if the patient laboratory billing amount is more than 1000

SELECT  patient.name AS 'Patient Name', patient.age AS 'Patient Age', patient.disease, doctor.name AS 'Doctor Name' 
FROM patient LEFT OUTER JOIN
doctor ON patient.doctor_id = doctor.doctor_id
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT lab_no, patient_id, doctor_id, date, amount FROM laboratory WHERE (amount > 1000))

• In the above query, the subquery will return patient laboratory details if the lab billing amount is greater than 1000
• In the outer query, we have used SQL Left outer join is used to get combine records of both the table patient and doctor
• SQL Exists will return FALSE value as subquery will not return any record because there is no laboratory billing amount is more than 1000

OUTPUT:

 

Example 5: Write SQL query to retrieve patient information with their doctor name if the doctor is having more than one patient

SELECT patient.name AS 'Patient Name', patient.age AS 'Patient Age', patient.disease, doctor.name AS 'Doctor Name' 
FROM patient LEFT OUTER JOIN doctor ON patient.doctor_id = doctor.doctor_id
WHERE  EXISTS
(SELECT COUNT(*) AS 'Total Patient' FROM  patient AS patient_1 
WHERE (doctor_id = doctor.doctor_id) GROUP BY doctor_id HAVING  (COUNT(*) > 1))
ORDER BY patient.disease

• In the above query, the SQL Exists operator is used in the conjunction with nested subquery which counts the total number of the doctor who is having more than one patient
• In outer query SQL left join is used to retrieve join records from two tables patient and doctor
• The SQL Exists will return TRUE value as the result of subquery will contain records

OUTPUT:

 

SQL Exists with Delete Statement

SQL Exist can also be used with SQL Delete statement to conditionally delete the record from the table, if the result of SQL Exists is TRUE then the records will be deleted from the table

Example 6: Write SQL query to remove those doctor information whose do not having any patient

DELETE FROM doctor
WHERE  EXISTS
(SELECT doctor_1.doctor_id, COUNT(patient.patient_id) AS Expr1 
FROM  doctor AS doctor_1 LEFT OUTER JOIN patient 
ON patient.doctor_id = doctor_1.doctor_id 
GROUP BY doctor_1.doctor_id 
HAVING (COUNT(patient.patient_id) = 0))

• In the above query, the SQL Exists operator is used in the conjunction with nested subquery which counts the total number of the doctor who does not have any patient
• The SQL Delete statement will remove all doctors information from the doctor table whose data exists in the resulting recordset of the subquery
• When we execute the above query four records will be deleted from the doctor table

OUTPUT:

 

SELECT  doctor_id, name, age, gender, address FROM  dbo.doctor

 

SQL Exists with Update Statement

SQL Exists can be used to conditionally update the records of table based on the TRUE result of where exists condition in the subquery

Example 7: Write SQL query to update patient billing data if the patient admitted for more than a day in hospital than set room charges to 200

update bill set room_charge=200 where exists (SELECT bill_no, patient_id, doctor_charge, room_charge, no_of_days
FROM dbo.bill
WHERE (room_charge < 200) AND (no_of_days > 1))

• In the above query, SQL Exists is used to update the patient billing information,
• In the subquery, SQL select statement is used to fetch data from bill table if the no_of_days is greater than 1 and room_charges <200
• SQL where exists will be resulting TRUE value as there is one record where this condition will be true
• When we execute the above update query, it will update room_charges data of one record

OUTPUT:

 

SELECT bill_no, patient_id, doctor_charge, room_charge, no_of_days
FROM dbo.bill

 

SQL NOT Exists

• SQL NOT EXISTS condition consists of two logical operators: EXISTS and NOT in which NOT is used to negate a Boolean input
• Unlike EXISTS, NOT EXISTS returns TRUE if the result of the subquery does not contain any rows

Example 8: Write SQL query to retrieve doctor details whose do not having any patient

SELECT  doctor_id, name, age, gender, address FROM  doctor
WHERE (NOT EXISTS 
(SELECT patient_id, name, age, gender, address, disease, doctor_id 
FROM patient WHERE 
(doctor.doctor_id = doctor_id)))

• In the above query, SQL NOT Exists is used to negate the records doctor who has patient record in the patient table
• The subquery will return the list of patient details with doctor id
• SQL NOT Exists will return true for the doctor whose id is not in the patient table doctor id

OUTPUT:

 

Comparison between EXISTS and IN 

• SQL Exists operator evaluates for TRUE or FALSE value, whereas the IN clause compare all records fetched from the given subquery column with the column value of the outer query 
• SQL EXISTS operator can only be used with subqueries, whereas we can use the IN operator on subqueries and values both

 

Example 9: Write an SQL query to display all patient information whose laboratory report data to exist in laboratory table

Using SQL Exists

SELECT  patient_id, name, age, gender, address, disease, doctor_id FROM  patient
WHERE  EXISTS
(SELECT lab_no, patient_id, doctor_id, date, amount FROM laboratory WHERE (patient.patient_id = patient_id))

• In the above query, SQL Exists is used to fetch patient records whose laboratory details are present in the laboratory table
• In subquery will return records of lab reports matches with the patient id of the patient table , so the SQL Exists condition will return TRUE value

 

Using SQL IN

SELECT   patient_id, name, age, gender, address, disease, doctor_id FROM  patient WHERE 
(patient_id IN (SELECT patient_id FROM laboratory WHERE (patient.patient_id = patient_id)))

• In the above query, SQL IN clause is used to fetch patient data whose laboratory test report records is present in laboratory table
• The subquery will fetch patient id from laboratory table and the resulting patient id will be compared with the patient id of patient table using IN operator, if found records will be display

OUTPUT:

 

Summary

In this Article on SQL Exists, we have covered the overview of the SQL Exists operator, usage and syntax of how to use SQL Exist with an explanation of each syntax argument, also covered the practical examples of SQL Exists with a NULL value, with a TRUE and FALSE value, with DELETE and UPDATE Statement, SQL NOT Exists example and in the ending section we have explained the difference between SQL Exists and SQL IN with practical example

 

References

SQL Left join
SQL In Select

 

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