SQL IN

The SQL IN clause allows you to specify discrete values in your SQL WHERE search criteria.

THE SQL IN syntax looks like this:


SELECT Column1, Column2, Column3, …
FROM Table1
WHERE Column1 IN (Valu1, Value2, …)

Lets use the EmployeeHours table to illustrate how SQL IN works:

Employee Date Hours
John Smith 5/6/2004 8
Allan Babel 5/6/2004 8
Tina Crown 5/6/2004 8
John Smith 5/7/2004 9
Allan Babel 5/7/2004 8
Tina Crown 5/7/2004 10
John Smith 5/8/2004 8
Allan Babel 5/8/2004 8
Tina Crown 5/8/2004 9

Consider the following SQL query using the SQL IN clause:


SELECT *
FROM EmployeeHours
WHERE Date IN ('5/6/2004', '5/7/2004')

This SQL expression will select only the entries where the column Date has value of '5/6/2004' or '5/7/2004', and you can see the result below:

Employee Date Hours
John Smith 5/6/2004 8
Allan Babel 5/6/2004 8
Tina Crown 5/6/2004 8
John Smith 5/7/2004 9
Allan Babel 5/7/2004 8
Tina Crown 5/7/2004 10

We can use the SQL IN statement with another column in our EmployeeHours table:


SELECT *
FROM EmployeeHours
WHERE Hours IN (9, 10)

The result of the SQL query above will be:

Employee Date Hours
John Smith 5/7/2004 9
Tina Crown 5/7/2004 10
Tina Crown 5/8/2004 9