PostgreSQL data manipulation language

This page defines the syntax of the SQL data manipulation language (DML) statements supported for PostgreSQL-dialect databases.

Notations used in the syntax

Square brackets [ ] indicate optional clauses.
Curly braces { } enclose a set of options.
The vertical bar | indicates a logical OR.
A comma followed by an ellipsis indicates that the preceding item can repeat in a comma-separated list.
- item [, ...] indicates one or more items, and
- [item, ...] indicates zero or more items.
Purple-colored text, such as item, marks Spanner extensions to open source PostgreSQL.
Parentheses ( ) indicate literal parentheses.
A comma , indicates the literal comma.
Angle brackets <> indicate literal angle brackets.
Uppercase words, such as INSERT, are keywords.

INSERT statement

Use the INSERT statement to add new rows to a table.

INSERT INTO table_name [ AS alias ]
    [ ( column_name [, ...] ) ]
    { VALUES ( { expression | DEFAULT } [, ...] ) [, ...] | query }
    [ ON CONFLICT (conflict_target) conflict_action ]
    [ RETURNING select-list ]

where conflict_target must be the primary key column(s) in order
and separated by columns.

and conflict_action is one of:

    DO NOTHING
    DO UPDATE SET { column_name [, ...] = excluded.column_name [, ...] }

and where query is:
    a query (SELECT statement) that supplies the rows to be inserted.

and select-list is:

    { * | expression [ [ AS ] output_name ] [, ...] }

See PostgreSQL queries for a description of the SELECT syntax.

Default values

Use the DEFAULT keyword to insert the default value of a column. If a column is not included in the column name list, Spanner assigns the default value of the column with little computing overhead. If the column has no defined default value, NULL is assigned to the column.

The use of default values is subject to current Spanner limits, including the mutation limit. If a column has a default value and it is used in an insert or update, the column is counted as one mutation. For example, assuming that table T has three columns and that col_a has a default value, the following inserts each result in three mutations:

INSERT INTO T (id, col_a, col_b) VALUES (1, DEFAULT, 1);
INSERT INTO T (id, col_a, col_b) VALUES (2, 200, 2);
INSERT INTO T (id, col_b) VALUES (3, 3);

For more information about default column values, see the DEFAULT ( expression ) clause in CREATE TABLE.

For more information about mutations, see What are mutations?.

`ON CONFLICT` clause

The ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING clause indicates that if the row that you're inserting already exists in the table, INSERT doesn't throw a unique constraint violation of the primary key, and the row isn't inserted.

The ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE SET clause indicates that if the row that you're inserting already exists in the table, INSERT doesn't throw a unique constraint violation of the primary key, and the row is updated.

This clause has a few differences from PostgreSQL, resulting in the following restrictions:

Only permits primary key columns as the conflict_target.
If the table has composite primary keys, you must specify all primary key columns in conflict_target.
The DO UPDATE SET clause must list all columns that you specify in the insert list.

For DO UPDATE SET, the update value must be set to the insert value in the query using the PostgreSQL special alias excluded. For example:

INSERT INTO singers (SingerId, FirstName, LastName)
ON CONFLICT(SingerId)
DO UPDATE SingerId = excluded.SingerId, FirstName = excluded.FirstName, LastName = excluded.LastName;

The WHERE clause in ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE clause isn't supported.

Examples for `ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE SET`

For the following table:

CREATE TABLE Singers (
  SingerId int primary key,
  FirstName varchar(64),
  LastName varchar(64),
  Birthdate date,
  Status varchar(64),
  SingerInfo varchar(64)
);

You can use the following query without a columns list:

INSERT INTO Singers
VALUES (5, 'Zak', 'Sterling', '1996-03-12', 'active', 'nationality:"U.S.A."'),
       (7, 'Edie', 'Silver', '1998-01-23', 'active', 'nationality:"U.S.A."')
ON CONFLICT (SingerId)
DO UPDATE SET SingerId=excluded.SingerId,
              FirstName=excluded.FirstName,
              LastName=excluded.LastName,
              Birthdate=excluded.Birthdate,
              Status=excluded.Status,
              SingerInfo=excluded.SingerInfo;

Or you can use the following query with a columns list:

INSERT INTO Singers
    (SingerId, LastName)
VALUES (5, 'Sterling'),
       (7, 'Silver')
ON CONFLICT (SingerId)
DO UPDATE SET SingerId=excluded.SingerId, LastName=excluded.LastName;

RETURNING

Use the RETURNING clause to return the results of the INSERT operation and selected data from the newly inserted rows. This clause is especially useful for retrieving values of columns with default values, generated columns, and auto-generated keys, without having to use additional SELECT statements.

The RETURNING clause can capture expressions based on newly inserted rows that include the following:

*: Returns all columns.
expression: Represents a column name of the table specified by table_name or an expression that uses any combination of such column names. Column names are valid if they belong to columns of the table_name. Excluded expressions include aggregate and analytic functions.
alias: Represents a temporary name for an expression in the query.

For example, the following query inserts two rows into the Singers table, uses RETURNING to fetch the SingerId column from these rows, and computes a new column called FullName.

INSERT INTO singers (SingerId, FirstName, LastName)
VALUES
    (7, 'Melissa', 'Garcia'),
    (8, 'Russell', 'Morales')
RETURNING SingerId, FirstName || ' ' || LastName AS FullName;

In the following query, we use ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE SET is used to update existing rows if there is a conflict for SingerId.

INSERT INTO singers (SingerId, FirstName, LastName)
VALUES
    (7, 'Melissa', 'Garcia'),
    (8, 'Russell', 'Morales')
ON CONFLICT (SingerId) DO UPDATE SET
    SingerId = EXCLUDED.SingerId,
    FirstName = EXCLUDED.FirstName,
    LastName = EXCLUDED.LastName
RETURNING SingerId, FirstName || ' ' || LastName AS FullName;

For instructions and code samples, see Modify data with the returning DML statements.

DELETE statement

Use the DELETE statement to delete rows from a table.

DELETE FROM table_name [ [ AS ] alias ]
    [ WHERE condition ]
    [ RETURNING select-list ]

where select-list is:
    { * | expression [ [ AS ] output_name ] [, ...] }

RETURNING

With the optional RETURNING clause, you can obtain data from rows that are being deleted in a table. For example, the following query deletes all rows in the Singers table that contains a singer called Melissa and returns the deleted rows.

DELETE FROM Singers WHERE Firstname = 'Melissa'
RETURNING *;

To learn more about the values that you can use in this clause, see INSERT RETURNING.

UPDATE statement

Use the UPDATE statement to update existing rows in a table.

UPDATE [ ONLY ] table_name [ * ] [ [ AS ] alias ]
    SET {
        column_name = { expression | DEFAULT } |
        ( column_name [, ...] ) = [ ROW ] ( { expression | DEFAULT } [, ...] )
    } [, ...]
    [ WHERE condition ]
    [ RETURNING select-list ]

where select-list is:
    { * | expression [ [ AS ] output_name ] [, ...] }

UPDATE statements must comply with the following rules:

A column can appear only once in the SET clause.
The columns in the SET clause can be listed in any order.
Each value must be type compatible with its associated column.
The values must comply with any constraints in the schema, such as unique secondary indexes or non-nullable columns.
Updates with joins are not supported.
You cannot update primary key columns.

Default values

The DEFAULT keyword sets the value of a column to its default value. If the column has no defined default value, the DEFAULT keyword sets it to NULL.

The use of default values is subject to current Spanner limits, including the mutation limit. If a column has a default value and it is used in an insert or update, the column is counted as one mutation. For example, assume that in table T, col_a has a default value. The following updates each result in two mutations. One comes from the primary key, and another comes from either the explicit value (1000) or the default value.

UPDATE T SET col_a = 1000 WHERE id=1;
UPDATE T SET col_a = DEFAULT WHERE id=3;

For more information about default column values, see the DEFAULT ( expression ) clause in CREATE TABLE.

For more information about mutations, see What are mutations?.

WHERE clause

The WHERE clause is required. This requirement can help prevent accidentally updating all the rows in a table. To update all rows in a table, set the condition to true.

The WHERE clause can contain any valid SQL boolean expression, including a subquery that refers to other tables.

Aliases

The WHERE clause has an implicit alias to target_name. This alias lets you reference columns in target_name without qualifying them with target_name. For example, if your statement starts with UPDATE Singers, then you can access any columns of Singers in the WHERE clause. In this example, FirstName and LastName are columns in the Singers table:

UPDATE singers
SET birthdate = '1990-10-10'
WHERE firstname = 'Marc' AND lastname = 'Richards';

You can also create an explicit alias using the optional AS keyword.

RETURNING

With the optional RETURNING clause, you can obtain data from rows that are being updated in a table. For example, the following query updates all rows where the singer first name is equal to Russell and returns the updated rows.

UPDATE Singers
SET BirthDate = '1990-10-10'
WHERE FirstName = 'Russell'
RETURNING *;

To learn more about the values that you can use in this clause, see INSERT RETURNING.

PostgreSQL data manipulation language

Notations used in the syntax

INSERT statement

Default values

ON CONFLICT clause

Examples for ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE SET

RETURNING

DELETE statement

RETURNING

UPDATE statement

Default values

WHERE clause

Aliases

RETURNING

`ON CONFLICT` clause

Examples for `ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE SET`