The SQL OR Operator

The WHERE clause can contain one or more OR operators.

The OR operator is used to filter records based on more than one condition, like if you want to return all employee from India but also those from Spain:

Example

Select all employee from India or Spain:


 SELECT  *  FROM  employee 
 WHERE  Country = 'India'  OR  Country=
'Spain' ;

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

Syntax

SELECT   column1, column2, ... 
 FROM  table_name
 WHERE condition1
 OR condition2 OR condition3...;

OR vs AND

The  OR  operator displays a record if any of the conditions are TRUE.

The  AND  operator displays a record if all the conditions are TRUE.

Demo Employee table

This employee table is used for examples:

At Least One Condition Must Be True

The following SQL statement selects all fields from employee where either City is "Ranchi", Employee_name starts with the letter "P" or Country is "Germany":

Example

Select all employee from India or Spain:
 SELECT  *  FROM  employee 
 WHERE  City = 'Ranchi'  OR 
              Employee_name LIKE 
'P%'  OR  Country= 'Germany' ;

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

Combining AND and OR

You can combine the AND and OR operators.

The following SQL statement selects all employee from India that starts with a "A" or an "R".

Make sure you use parenthesis to get the correct result.

Example

Select all Indian employee that starts with either "A" or "R":


 SELECT  *  FROM  employee 

 WHERE  Country = 'India'  AND 
(Employee_name LIKE 
'A%'  OR  Employee_name LIKE  'R%' );

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

Without parenthesis, the select statement will return all employee from India that starts with a "A", plus all customers that starts with an "R", regardless of the country value:

Example

 SELECT  *  FROM  employee 

 WHERE  Country = 'India'  AND 
Employee_name LIKE 
'A%'  OR  Employee_name LIKE  'R%' ;

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output