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Making CockroachDB easy to use is a top priority for us, so we chose to implement SQL. However, even though SQL has a standard, no database implements all of it, nor do any of them have standard implementations of all features.
To understand which standard SQL features we support (as well as common extensions to the standard), use the table below.
- Component lists the components that are commonly considered part of SQL.
- Supported shows CockroachDB's level of support for the component.
- Type indicates whether the component is part of the SQL Standard or is an Extension created by ourselves or others.
- Details provides greater context about the component.
Features
Row values
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
ARRAY |
✓ | Standard | ARRAY documentation |
AUTO INCREMENT (Automatic key generation) |
Alternative | Common Extension | Automatic key generation FAQ |
BIT |
✓ | Standard | BIT documentation |
BOOLEAN |
✓ | Standard | BOOL documentation |
BYTES |
✓ | CockroachDB Extension | BYTES documentation |
COLLATE |
✓ | Standard | COLLATE documentation |
DATE |
✓ | Standard | DATE documentation |
DECIMAL , NUMERIC |
✓ | Standard | DECIMAL documentation |
ENUM |
✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | ENUM documentation |
FLOAT , REAL |
✓ | Standard | FLOAT documentation |
INET |
✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | INET documentation |
INT |
✓ | Standard | INT documentation |
INTERVAL |
✓ | Standard | INTERVAL documentation |
JSON /JSONB |
✓ | Common Extension | JSONB documentation |
NULL |
✓ | Standard | NULL -handling documentation |
OID |
✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | OID documentation |
SERIAL |
✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | SERIAL documentation |
SET |
✗ | MySQL | Only allow rows to contain values from a defined set of terms. |
STRING , CHARACTER |
✓ | Standard | STRING documentation |
TIME |
✓ | Standard | TIME documentation |
TIMESTAMP /TIMESTAMPTZ |
✓ | Standard | TIMESTAMP documentation |
TSQUERY |
✓ | Standard | TSQUERY documentation |
TSVECTOR |
✓ | Standard | TSVECTOR documentation |
UNSIGNED INT |
✗ | Common Extension | UNSIGNED INT causes numerous casting issues, so we do not plan to support it. |
UUID |
✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | UUID documentation |
Identifiers | ✓ | Standard | Identifiers documentation. See also SQL Name Resolution. |
Key-value pairs | Alternative | Extension | Key-Value FAQ |
XML | ✗ | Standard | XML data can be stored as BYTES , but we do not offer XML parsing. |
Constraints
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Not Null | ✓ | Standard | Not Null documentation |
Unique | ✓ | Standard | Unique documentation |
Primary Key | ✓ | Standard | Primary Key documentation |
Check | ✓ | Standard | Check documentation |
Foreign Key | ✓ | Standard | Foreign Key documentation |
Default Value | ✓ | Standard | Default Value documentation |
Transactions
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Transactions (ACID semantics) | ✓ | Standard | Transactions documentation |
BEGIN |
✓ | Standard | BEGIN documentation |
COMMIT |
✓ | Standard | COMMIT documentation |
ROLLBACK |
✓ | Standard | ROLLBACK documentation |
SAVEPOINT |
✓ | Standard with CockroachDB extensions | CockroachDB supports nested transactions using SAVEPOINT |
Indexes
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Indexes documentation |
Multi-column indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | We do not limit on the number of columns indexes can include |
Covering indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Storing Columns documentation |
GIN indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | GIN indexes documentation |
Trigram indexes | ✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | Trigram indexes documentation |
Partial indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Partial indexes documentation |
Spatial indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Spatial indexes documentation |
Multiple indexes per query | Partial | Common Extension | Index selection |
Full-text indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Full-text search documentation |
Expression indexes | ✓ | Common Extension | Expression indexes |
Prefix indexes | ✗ | Common Extension | Implement using Expression indexes |
Hash indexes | ✗ | Common Extension | Improves performance of queries looking for single, exact values |
Hash-sharded indexes | ✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Hash-sharded Indexes documentation |
Schema changes
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
ALTER TABLE |
✓ | Standard | ALTER TABLE documentation |
Database renames | ✓ | Standard | ALTER DATABASE ... RENAME TO documentation |
Table renames | ✓ | Standard | ALTER TABLE ... RENAME TO documentation |
Column renames | ✓ | Standard | RENAME COLUMN documentation |
Altering a column's data type | ✓ | Standard | ALTER COLUMN documentation |
Adding columns | ✓ | Standard | ADD COLUMN documentation |
Removing columns | ✓ | Standard | DROP COLUMN documentation |
Adding constraints | ✓ | Standard | ADD CONSTRAINT documentation |
Removing constraints | ✓ | Standard | DROP CONSTRAINT documentation |
Index renames | ✓ | Standard | ALTER INDEX ... RENAME TO documentation |
Adding indexes | ✓ | Standard | CREATE INDEX documentation |
Removing indexes | ✓ | Standard | DROP INDEX documentation |
Altering a primary key | ✓ | Standard | ALTER PRIMARY KEY documentation |
Adding user-defined schemas | ✓ | Standard | CREATE SCHEMA documentation |
Removing user-defined schemas | ✓ | Standard | DROP SCHEMA documentation |
Altering user-defined schemas | ✓ | Standard | ALTER SCHEMA documentation |
Statements
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Common statements | ✓ | Standard, PostgreSQL/CockroachDB Extension | SQL Statements documentation |
UPSERT |
✓ | PostgreSQL, MSSQL Extension | UPSERT documentation |
EXPLAIN |
✓ | Common Extension | EXPLAIN documentation |
SELECT INTO |
Alternative | Common Extension | You can replicate similar functionality using CREATE TABLE and then INSERT INTO ... SELECT ... . |
SELECT FOR UPDATE |
✓ | Common Extension | SELECT FOR UPDATE documentation |
Clauses
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Common clauses | ✓ | Standard | SQL Grammar documentation |
LIMIT |
✓ | Common Extension | Limit the number of rows a statement returns. For more information, see Limit Query Results. |
LIMIT with OFFSET |
✓ | Common Extension | Skip a number of rows, and then limit the size of the return set. For more information, see Limit Query Results. |
RETURNING |
✓ | Common Extension | Retrieve a table of rows statements affect. For examples, see the INSERT and DELETE documentation. |
Table expressions
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Table and View references | ✓ | Standard | Table expressions documentation |
AS in table expressions |
✓ | Standard | Aliased table expressions documentation |
JOIN (INNER , LEFT , RIGHT , FULL , CROSS ) |
✓ | Standard | JOIN expressions documentation |
Sub-queries as table expressions | Partial | Standard | Non-correlated subqueries are supported, as are most correlated subqueries. |
Table generator functions | Partial | PostgreSQL Extension | Table generator functions documentation |
WITH ORDINALITY |
✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Ordinality annotation documentation |
Scalar expressions and Boolean formulas
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Common functions | ✓ | Standard | Functions calls and SQL special forms documentation |
Common operators | ✓ | Standard | Operators documentation |
IF /CASE /NULLIF |
✓ | Standard | Conditional expressions documentation |
COALESCE /IFNULL |
✓ | Standard | Conditional expressions documentation |
AND /OR |
✓ | Standard | Conditional expressions documentation |
LIKE /ILIKE |
✓ | Standard | String pattern matching documentation |
SIMILAR TO |
✓ | Standard | SQL regexp pattern matching documentation |
Matching using POSIX regular expressions | ✓ | Common Extension | POSIX regexp pattern matching documentation |
EXISTS |
Partial | Standard | Non-correlated subqueries are supported, as are most correlated subqueries. Works only with small data sets. |
Scalar subqueries | Partial | Standard | Non-correlated subqueries are supported, as are most correlated subqueries. Works only with small data sets. |
Bitwise arithmetic | ✓ | Common Extension | Operators documentation |
Array constructors and subscripting | Partial | PostgreSQL Extension | Array expression documentation: Constructor syntax and Subscripting |
COLLATE |
✓ | Standard | Collation expressions documentation |
Column ordinal references | ✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Column references documentation |
Type annotations | ✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Type annotations documentation |
Permissions
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Users | ✓ | Standard | Users documentation |
Roles | ✓ | Standard | Roles documentation |
Object ownership | ✓ | Common Extension | Ownership documentation |
Privileges | ✓ | Standard | Privileges documentation |
Default privileges | ✓ | PostgreSQL Extension | Default privileges documentation |
Miscellaneous
Component | Supported | Type | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Column families | ✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Column Families documentation |
Computed columns (stored and virtual) | ✓ | Common Extension | Computed Columns documentation |
ON UPDATE expressions |
✓ | MySQL Extension | ON UPDATE expressions documentation |
Multi-region capabilities | ✓ | CockroachDB Extension | Multi-region documentation |
System catalog schemas | ✓ | Standard, PostgreSQL/CockroachDB Extension | crdb_internal (CockroachDB Extension)information_schema (Standard)pg_catalog (PostgreSQL Extension)pg_extension (PostgreSQL Extension) |
Sequences | ✓ | Common Extension | CREATE SEQUENCE documentation |
Identity columns | ✓ | Common Extension | Identity columns documentation |
Views | ✓ | Standard | Views documentation |
Materialized views | ✓ | Common Extension | Materialized views documentation |
Window functions | ✓ | Standard | Window Functions documentation |
Common table expressions | Partial | Common Extension | Common Table Expressions documentation |
Stored procedures | ✗ | Common Extension | Execute a procedure explicitly. GitHub issue tracking stored procedures support. |
Cursors | Partial | Standard | Cursors documentation |
Triggers | ✗ | Standard | Execute a set of commands whenever a specified event occurs. GitHub issue tracking trigger support. |
Row-level TTL | ✓ | Common Extension | Automatically delete expired rows. For more information, see Batch-delete expired data with Row-Level TTL. |
User-defined functions | Partial | Standard | User-Defined Functions documentation |
CREATE EXTENSION "uuid-ossp" |
✓ | Common Extension | Provides access to several additional UUID generation functions. Note that these UUID functions are available without typing CREATE EXTENSION "uuid-ossp" . CockroachDB does not have full support for CREATE EXTENSION . GitHub issue tracking CREATE EXTENSION support. |