Question

Hi i am trying to run a query on a database, but i keep getting this error, do you see anything wrong with my query?

SELECT *
FROM `data`
WHERE `Category` LIKE '%beauty%' and not in (SELECT *
FROM `data`
WHERE `Category` LIKE 'beauty%')

thanx

Answer 1

The problem is in this area:

and not in

The corect syntax is

and not <field name> in (Select <INDIVIDUAL FIELD> from ...)

You can’t do a subquery in a where clause where you are selecting all coumns (*) You need to select one individual column in the subquery and tie it to one column in your main query.

So the full statement should be something like

SELECT *
FROM `data`
WHERE `Category` LIKE '%beauty%' and `Category` not in (SELECT Category
FROM `data`
WHERE `Category` LIKE 'beauty%')

It’s equivalent to

SELECT *
FROM `data`
WHERE `Category` LIKE '%beauty%' and `Category`  NOT LIKE 'beauty%'

which is a lot more readable IMO

For more info on using subqueries in an IN statement in a WHERE clause, see http://beginner-sql-tutorial.com/sql-subquery.htm

Scroll down to find “Correlated Subquery” in the article.