Cloudera Docs

Subquery restrictions

To construct queries efficiently, you must understand the restrictions of subqueries in WHERE clauses.

  • Subqueries must appear on the right side of an expression.

  • Nested subqueries are not supported.

  • Subquery predicates must appear as top-level conjuncts.

  • Subqueries support four logical operators in query predicates: IN, NOT IN, EXISTS, and NOT EXISTS.

  • The IN and NOT IN logical operators may select only one column in a WHERE clause subquery.

  • The EXISTS and NOT EXISTS operators must have at least one correlated predicate.

  • The left side of a subquery must qualify all references to table columns.

  • References to columns in the parent query are allowed only in the WHERE clause of the subquery.

  • Subquery predicates that reference a column in a parent query must use the equals (=) predicate operator.

  • Subquery predicates may refer only to columns in the parent query.

  • Correlated subqueries with an implied GROUP BY statement may return only one row.

  • All unqualified references to columns in a subquery must resolve to tables in the subquery.

  • Correlated subqueries cannot contain windowing clauses.