Summary

In SQL Server, NOT EXISTS and NOT IN predicates are the best way to search for missing values, as long as both columns in question are NOT NULL. They produce the safe efficient plans with some kind of an Anti Join.

LEFT JOIN / IS NULL is less efficient, since it makes no attempt to skip the already matched values in the right table, returning all results and filtering them out instead.

EXISTS vs JOIN and use of EXISTS clause

回答1

EXISTS is used to return a boolean value, JOIN returns a whole other table

EXISTS is only used to test if a subquery returns results, and short circuits as soon as it does. JOIN is used to extend a result set by combining it with additional fields from another table to which there is a relation.

In your example, the queries are semantically equivalent.

In general, use EXISTS when:

• You don‘t need to return data from the related table
• You have dupes in the related table (JOIN can cause duplicate rows if values are repeated)
• You want to check existence (use instead of LEFT OUTER JOIN...NULL condition)

If you have proper indexes, most of the time the EXISTS will perform identically to the JOIN. The exception is on very complicated subqueries, where it is normally quicker to use EXISTS.

If your JOIN key is not indexed, it may be quicker to use EXISTS but you will need to test for your specific circumstance.

JOIN syntax is easier to read and clearer normally as well.

回答2

• EXISTS is a semi-join
• JOIN is a join

So with 3 rows and 5 rows matching

• JOIN gives 15 rows
• EXISTS gives 3 rows

The result is the "short circuit" effect mentioned by others and no need to use DISTINCT with a JOIN. EXISTS is almost always quicker when looking for existence of rows on the n side of a 1:n relationship.

SQL performance on LEFT OUTER JOIN vs NOT EXISTS

Joe‘s link is a good starting point. Quassnoi covers this too.

In general, if your fields are properly indexed, OR if you expect to filter out more records (i.e. have a lots of rows EXIST in the subquery) NOT EXISTS will perform better.

EXISTS and NOT EXISTS both short circuit - as soon as a record matches the criteria it‘s either included or filtered out and the optimizer moves on to the next record.

LEFT JOIN will join ALL RECORDS regardless of whether they match or not, then filter out all non-matching records. If your tables are large and/or you have multiple JOIN criteria, this can be very very resource intensive资源密集型.

I normally try to use NOT EXISTS and EXISTS where possible. For SQL Server, IN and NOT IN are semantically equivalent and may be easier to write. These are among the only operators you will find in SQL Server that are guaranteed to short circuit.

NOT IN vs. NOT EXISTS vs. LEFT JOIN / IS NULL: SQL Server

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