VALUES(7)

NAME

   VALUES - compute a set of rows

SYNOPSIS

   VALUES ( expression [, ...] ) [, ...]
       [ ORDER BY sort_expression [ ASC | DESC | USING operator ] [, ...] ]
       [ LIMIT { count | ALL } ]
       [ OFFSET start [ ROW | ROWS ] ]
       [ FETCH { FIRST | NEXT } [ count ] { ROW | ROWS } ONLY ]

DESCRIPTION

   VALUES computes a row value or set of row values specified by value
   expressions. It is most commonly used to generate a "constant table"
   within a larger command, but it can be used on its own.

   When more than one row is specified, all the rows must have the same
   number of elements. The data types of the resulting table's columns are
   determined by combining the explicit or inferred types of the
   expressions appearing in that column, using the same rules as for UNION
   (see Section 10.5, "UNION, CASE, and Related Constructs", in the
   documentation).

   Within larger commands, VALUES is syntactically allowed anywhere that
   SELECT is. Because it is treated like a SELECT by the grammar, it is
   possible to use the ORDER BY, LIMIT (or equivalently FETCH FIRST), and
   OFFSET clauses with a VALUES command.

PARAMETERS

   expression
       A constant or expression to compute and insert at the indicated
       place in the resulting table (set of rows). In a VALUES list
       appearing at the top level of an INSERT, an expression can be
       replaced by DEFAULT to indicate that the destination column's
       default value should be inserted.  DEFAULT cannot be used when
       VALUES appears in other contexts.

   sort_expression
       An expression or integer constant indicating how to sort the result
       rows. This expression can refer to the columns of the VALUES result
       as column1, column2, etc. For more details see ORDER BY Clause.

   operator
       A sorting operator. For details see ORDER BY Clause.

   count
       The maximum number of rows to return. For details see LIMIT Clause.

   start
       The number of rows to skip before starting to return rows. For
       details see LIMIT Clause.

NOTES

   VALUES lists with very large numbers of rows should be avoided, as you
   might encounter out-of-memory failures or poor performance.  VALUES
   appearing within INSERT is a special case (because the desired column
   types are known from the INSERT's target table, and need not be
   inferred by scanning the VALUES list), so it can handle larger lists
   than are practical in other contexts.

EXAMPLES

   A bare VALUES command:

       VALUES (1, 'one'), (2, 'two'), (3, 'three');

   This will return a table of two columns and three rows. It's
   effectively equivalent to:

       SELECT 1 AS column1, 'one' AS column2
       UNION ALL
       SELECT 2, 'two'
       UNION ALL
       SELECT 3, 'three';

   More usually, VALUES is used within a larger SQL command. The most
   common use is in INSERT:

       INSERT INTO films (code, title, did, date_prod, kind)
           VALUES ('T_601', 'Yojimbo', 106, '1961-06-16', 'Drama');

   In the context of INSERT, entries of a VALUES list can be DEFAULT to
   indicate that the column default should be used here instead of
   specifying a value:

       INSERT INTO films VALUES
           ('UA502', 'Bananas', 105, DEFAULT, 'Comedy', '82 minutes'),
           ('T_601', 'Yojimbo', 106, DEFAULT, 'Drama', DEFAULT);

   VALUES can also be used where a sub-SELECT might be written, for
   example in a FROM clause:

       SELECT f.*
         FROM films f, (VALUES('MGM', 'Horror'), ('UA', 'Sci-Fi')) AS t (studio, kind)
         WHERE f.studio = t.studio AND f.kind = t.kind;

       UPDATE employees SET salary = salary * v.increase
         FROM (VALUES(1, 200000, 1.2), (2, 400000, 1.4)) AS v (depno, target, increase)
         WHERE employees.depno = v.depno AND employees.sales >= v.target;

   Note that an AS clause is required when VALUES is used in a FROM
   clause, just as is true for SELECT. It is not required that the AS
   clause specify names for all the columns, but it's good practice to do
   so. (The default column names for VALUES are column1, column2, etc in
   PostgreSQL, but these names might be different in other database
   systems.)

   When VALUES is used in INSERT, the values are all automatically coerced
   to the data type of the corresponding destination column. When it's
   used in other contexts, it might be necessary to specify the correct
   data type. If the entries are all quoted literal constants, coercing
   the first is sufficient to determine the assumed type for all:

       SELECT * FROM machines
       WHERE ip_address IN (VALUES('192.168.0.1'::inet), ('192.168.0.10'), ('192.168.1.43'));

       Tip
       For simple IN tests, it's better to rely on the list-of-scalars
       form of IN than to write a VALUES query as shown above. The list of
       scalars method requires less writing and is often more efficient.

COMPATIBILITY

   VALUES conforms to the SQL standard.  LIMIT and OFFSET are PostgreSQL
   extensions; see also under SELECT(7).

SEE ALSO

   INSERT(7), SELECT(7)

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