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values

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The Values table function allows you to create temporary storage which fills columns with values. It is useful for quick testing or generating sample data.

Syntax

The basic syntax of the VALUES table function is:

VALUES([structure,] values...)

It is commonly used as:

VALUES(
    ['column1_name Type1, column2_name Type2, ...'],
    (value1_row1, value2_row1, ...),
    (value1_row2, value2_row2, ...),
    ...
)

Arguments

  • column1_name Type1, ... (optional). String specifying the column names and types. If this argument is omitted columns will be named as c1, c2, etc.
  • (value1_row1, value2_row1). Tuples containing values of any type.

Returned value

  • Returns a temporary table containing the provided values.

Examples

Querysql
SELECT *
FROM VALUES(
    'person String, place String',
    ('Noah', 'Paris'),
    ('Emma', 'Tokyo'),
    ('Liam', 'Sydney'),
    ('Olivia', 'Berlin'),
    ('Ilya', 'London'),
    ('Sophia', 'London'),
    ('Jackson', 'Madrid'),
    ('Alexey', 'Amsterdam'),
    ('Mason', 'Venice'),
    ('Isabella', 'Prague')
)
Responseresponse
    ┌─person───┬─place─────┐
 1. │ Noah     │ Paris     │
 2. │ Emma     │ Tokyo     │
 3. │ Liam     │ Sydney    │
 4. │ Olivia   │ Berlin    │
 5. │ Ilya     │ London    │
 6. │ Sophia   │ London    │
 7. │ Jackson  │ Madrid    │
 8. │ Alexey   │ Amsterdam │
 9. │ Mason    │ Venice    │
10. │ Isabella │ Prague    │
    └──────────┴───────────┘

VALUES can also be used with single values rather than tuples. For example:

Querysql
SELECT *
FROM VALUES(
    'person String',
    'Noah',
    'Emma',
    'Liam',
    'Olivia',
    'Ilya',
    'Sophia',
    'Jackson',
    'Alexey',
    'Mason',
    'Isabella'
)
Responseresponse
    ┌─person───┐
 1. │ Noah     │
 2. │ Emma     │
 3. │ Liam     │
 4. │ Olivia   │
 5. │ Ilya     │
 6. │ Sophia   │
 7. │ Jackson  │
 8. │ Alexey   │
 9. │ Mason    │
10. │ Isabella │
    └──────────┘

Or without providing a row specification ('column1_name Type1, column2_name Type2, ...' in the syntax), in which case the columns are automatically named.

For example:

Querysql
-- tuples as values
SELECT *
FROM VALUES(
    ('Noah', 'Paris'),
    ('Emma', 'Tokyo'),
    ('Liam', 'Sydney'),
    ('Olivia', 'Berlin'),
    ('Ilya', 'London'),
    ('Sophia', 'London'),
    ('Jackson', 'Madrid'),
    ('Alexey', 'Amsterdam'),
    ('Mason', 'Venice'),
    ('Isabella', 'Prague')
)
Responseresponse
    ┌─c1───────┬─c2────────┐
 1. │ Noah     │ Paris     │
 2. │ Emma     │ Tokyo     │
 3. │ Liam     │ Sydney    │
 4. │ Olivia   │ Berlin    │
 5. │ Ilya     │ London    │
 6. │ Sophia   │ London    │
 7. │ Jackson  │ Madrid    │
 8. │ Alexey   │ Amsterdam │
 9. │ Mason    │ Venice    │
10. │ Isabella │ Prague    │
    └──────────┴───────────┘
Querysql
-- single values
SELECT *
FROM VALUES(
    'Noah',
    'Emma',
    'Liam',
    'Olivia',
    'Ilya',
    'Sophia',
    'Jackson',
    'Alexey',
    'Mason',
    'Isabella'
)
Responseresponse
    ┌─c1───────┐
 1. │ Noah     │
 2. │ Emma     │
 3. │ Liam     │
 4. │ Olivia   │
 5. │ Ilya     │
 6. │ Sophia   │
 7. │ Jackson  │
 8. │ Alexey   │
 9. │ Mason    │
10. │ Isabella │
    └──────────┘

SQL Standard VALUES Clause

From version 26.3, ClickHouse also supports the SQL standard VALUES clause as a table expression in FROM, as used in PostgreSQL, MySQL, DuckDB, and SQL Server. This syntax is rewritten internally to use the values table function described above.

Querysql
SELECT * FROM (VALUES (1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')) AS t(id, val);
Responseresponse
┌─id─┬─val─┐
│  1 │ a   │
│  2 │ b   │
│  3 │ c   │
└────┴─────┘

It can be used in CTEs:

Querysql
WITH cte AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES (1, 'one'), (2, 'two')) AS t(id, name))
SELECT * FROM cte;

And in JOINs:

Querysql
SELECT t1.id, t1.val, t2.val2
FROM (VALUES (1, 'a'), (2, 'b')) AS t1(id, val)
JOIN (VALUES (1, 'x'), (2, 'y')) AS t2(id, val2) ON t1.id = t2.id;

See also

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