SQL Keywords

Quick reference to SQL's reserved keywords, grouped by what they do. Use it as a memory jog, not as a substitute for the per-vendor docs.

Query keywords

SELECT, DISTINCT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY, LIMIT, OFFSET, TOP, FETCH, WITH.

Set operators

UNION, UNION ALL, INTERSECT, EXCEPT / MINUS.

Joins

INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, RIGHT JOIN, FULL OUTER JOIN, CROSS JOIN, NATURAL JOIN, USING, ON.

Filtering

AND, OR, NOT, IN, NOT IN, BETWEEN, LIKE, ILIKE, IS NULL, EXISTS, ANY, ALL, SOME.

Aggregation

COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, STDDEV, VAR, GROUP_CONCAT / STRING_AGG.

Data modification

INSERT INTO, VALUES, UPDATE, SET, DELETE, MERGE, RETURNING, ON CONFLICT, ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE.

Schema (DDL)

CREATE, ALTER, DROP, RENAME, TRUNCATE, DATABASE, TABLE, VIEW, INDEX, SEQUENCE, SCHEMA.

Constraints

PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY, REFERENCES, UNIQUE, NOT NULL, CHECK, DEFAULT, CONSTRAINT.

Transactions

BEGIN / START TRANSACTION, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVEPOINT, RELEASE SAVEPOINT.

Permissions (DCL)

GRANT, REVOKE, DENY, ROLE, USER.

Example

-- Common keywords:
SELECT, FROM, WHERE, JOIN, GROUP BY, HAVING,
ORDER BY, LIMIT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, ALTER.

Exercise

Test yourself