Literals

A literal (also known as a constant) represents a fixed data value. Spark SQL supports the following literals:

String Literal

A string literal is used to specify a character string value.

Syntax

'char [ ... ]' | "char [ ... ]"

Parameters

Examples

SELECT 'Hello, World!' AS col;
+-------------+
|          col|
+-------------+
|Hello, World!|
+-------------+

SELECT "SPARK SQL" AS col;
+---------+
|      col|
+---------+
|Spark SQL|
+---------+

SELECT 'it\'s $10.' AS col;
+---------+
|      col|
+---------+
|It's $10.|
+---------+

Binary Literal

A binary literal is used to specify a byte sequence value.

Syntax

X { 'num [ ... ]' | "num [ ... ]" }

Parameters

Examples

SELECT X'123456' AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|[12 34 56]|
+----------+

Null Literal

A null literal is used to specify a null value.

Syntax

NULL

Examples

SELECT NULL AS col;
+----+
| col|
+----+
|NULL|
+----+

Boolean Literal

A boolean literal is used to specify a boolean value.

Syntax

TRUE | FALSE

Examples

SELECT TRUE AS col;
+----+
| col|
+----+
|true|
+----+

Numeric Literal

A numeric literal is used to specify a fixed or floating-point number. There are two kinds of numeric literals: integral literal and fractional literal.

Integral Literal Syntax

[ + | - ] digit [ ... ] [ L | S | Y ]

Integral Literal Parameters

Integral Literal Examples

SELECT -2147483648 AS col;
+-----------+
|        col|
+-----------+
|-2147483648|
+-----------+

SELECT 9223372036854775807l AS col;
+-------------------+
|                col|
+-------------------+
|9223372036854775807|
+-------------------+

SELECT -32Y AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
|-32|
+---+

SELECT 482S AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
|482|
+---+

Fractional Literals Syntax

decimal literals:

decimal_digits { [ BD ] | [ exponent BD ] } | digit [ ... ] [ exponent ] BD

double literals:

decimal_digits  { D | exponent [ D ] }  | digit [ ... ] { exponent [ D ] | [ exponent ] D }

float literals:

decimal_digits  { F | exponent [ F ] }  | digit [ ... ] { exponent [ F ] | [ exponent ] F }

While decimal_digits is defined as

[ + | - ] { digit [ ... ] . [ digit [ ... ] ] | . digit [ ... ] }

and exponent is defined as

E [ + | - ] digit [ ... ]

Fractional Literals Parameters

Fractional Literals Examples

SELECT 12.578 AS col;
+------+
|   col|
+------+
|12.578|
+------+

SELECT -0.1234567 AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|-0.1234567|
+----------+

SELECT -.1234567 AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|-0.1234567|
+----------+

SELECT 123. AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
|123|
+---+

SELECT 123.BD AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
|123|
+---+

SELECT 5E2 AS col;
+-----+
|  col|
+-----+
|500.0|
+-----+

SELECT 5D AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
|5.0|
+---+

SELECT -5BD AS col;
+---+
|col|
+---+
| -5|
+---+

SELECT 12.578e-2d AS col;
+-------+
|    col|
+-------+
|0.12578|
+-------+

SELECT -.1234567E+2BD AS col;
+---------+
|      col|
+---------+
|-12.34567|
+---------+

SELECT +3.e+3 AS col;
+------+
|   col|
+------+
|3000.0|
+------+

SELECT -3.E-3D AS col;
+------+
|   col|
+------+
|-0.003|
+------+

Datetime Literal

A datetime literal is used to specify a date or timestamp value.

Date Syntax

DATE { 'yyyy' |
       'yyyy-[m]m' |
       'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d' |
       'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d[T]' }

Note: defaults to 01 if month or day is not specified.

Date Examples

SELECT DATE '1997' AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|1997-01-01|
+----------+

SELECT DATE '1997-01' AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|1997-01-01|
+----------+

SELECT DATE '2011-11-11' AS col;
+----------+
|       col|
+----------+
|2011-11-11|
+----------+

Timestamp Syntax

TIMESTAMP { 'yyyy' |
            'yyyy-[m]m' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d ' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d[T][h]h[:]' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d[T][h]h:[m]m[:]' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d[T][h]h:[m]m:[s]s[.]' |
            'yyyy-[m]m-[d]d[T][h]h:[m]m:[s]s.[ms][ms][ms][us][us][us][zone_id]'}

Note: defaults to 00 if hour, minute or second is not specified. zone_id should have one of the forms:

Note: defaults to the session local timezone (set via spark.sql.session.timeZone) if zone_id is not specified.

Timestamp Examples

SELECT TIMESTAMP '1997-01-31 09:26:56.123' AS col;
+-----------------------+
|                    col|
+-----------------------+
|1997-01-31 09:26:56.123|
+-----------------------+

SELECT TIMESTAMP '1997-01-31 09:26:56.66666666UTC+08:00' AS col;
+--------------------------+
|                      col |
+--------------------------+
|1997-01-30 17:26:56.666666|
+--------------------------+

SELECT TIMESTAMP '1997-01' AS col;
+-------------------+
|                col|
+-------------------+
|1997-01-01 00:00:00|
+-------------------+

Interval Literal

An interval literal is used to specify a fixed period of time. The interval literal supports two syntaxes: ANSI syntax and multi-units syntax.

ANSI Syntax

The ANSI SQL standard defines interval literals in the form:

INTERVAL [ <sign> ] <interval string> <interval qualifier>

where <interval qualifier> can be a single field or in the field-to-field form:

<interval qualifier> ::= <start field> TO <end field> | <single field>

The field name is case-insensitive, and can be one of YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE and SECOND.

An interval literal can have either year-month or day-time interval type. The interval sub-type defines format of <interval string>:

<interval string> ::= <quote> [ <sign> ] { <year-month literal> | <day-time literal> } <quote>
<year-month literal> ::= <years value> [ <minus sign> <months value> ] | <months value>
<day-time literal> ::= <day-time interval> | <time interval>
<day-time interval> ::= <days value> [ <space> <hours value> [ <colon> <minutes value> [ <colon> <seconds value> ] ] ]
<time interval> ::= <hours value> [ <colon> <minutes value> [ <colon> <seconds value> ] ]
  | <minutes value> [ <colon> <seconds value> ]
  | <seconds value>

Supported year-month interval literals and theirs formats:

<interval qualifier> Interval string pattern An instance of the literal
YEAR [+|-]'[+|-]y' INTERVAL -'2021' YEAR
YEAR TO MONTH [+|-]'[+|-]y-m' INTERVAL '-2021-07' YEAR TO MONTH
MONTH [+|-]'[+|-]m' interval '10' month

Formats of supported day-time interval literals:

<interval qualifier> Interval string pattern An instance of the literal
DAY [+|-]'[+|-]d' INTERVAL -'100' DAY
DAY TO HOUR [+|-]'[+|-]d h' INTERVAL '-100 10' DAY TO HOUR
DAY TO MINUTE [+|-]'[+|-]d h:m' INTERVAL '100 10:30' DAY TO MINUTE
DAY TO SECOND [+|-]'[+|-]d h:m:s.n' INTERVAL '100 10:30:40.999999' DAY TO SECOND
HOUR [+|-]'[+|-]h' INTERVAL '123' HOUR
HOUR TO MINUTE [+|-]'[+|-]h:m' INTERVAL -'-123:10' HOUR TO MINUTE
HOUR TO SECOND [+|-]'[+|-]h:m:s.n' INTERVAL '123:10:59' HOUR TO SECOND
MINUTE [+|-]'[+|-]m' interval '1000' minute
MINUTE TO SECOND [+|-]'[+|-]m:s.n' INTERVAL '1000:01.001' MINUTE TO SECOND
SECOND [+|-]'[+|-]s.n' INTERVAL '1000.000001' SECOND

ANSI Examples

SELECT INTERVAL '2-3' YEAR TO MONTH AS col;
+----------------------------+
|col                         |
+----------------------------+
|INTERVAL '2-3' YEAR TO MONTH|
+----------------------------+

SELECT INTERVAL -'20 15:40:32.99899999' DAY TO SECOND AS col;
+--------------------------------------------+
|col                                         |
+--------------------------------------------+
|INTERVAL '-20 15:40:32.998999' DAY TO SECOND|
+--------------------------------------------+

Multi-units Syntax

INTERVAL interval_value interval_unit [ interval_value interval_unit ... ] |
INTERVAL 'interval_value interval_unit [ interval_value interval_unit ... ]' |

Multi-units Parameters

Multi-units Examples

SELECT INTERVAL 3 YEAR AS col;
+-------+
|    col|
+-------+
|3 years|
+-------+

SELECT INTERVAL -2 HOUR '3' MINUTE AS col;
+--------------------+
|                 col|
+--------------------+
|-1 hours -57 minutes|
+--------------------+

SELECT INTERVAL '1 YEAR 2 DAYS 3 HOURS';
+----------------------+
|                   col|
+----------------------+
|1 years 2 days 3 hours|
+----------------------+

SELECT INTERVAL 1 YEARS 2 MONTH 3 WEEK 4 DAYS 5 HOUR 6 MINUTES 7 SECOND 8
    MILLISECOND 9 MICROSECONDS AS col;
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                        col|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|1 years 2 months 25 days 5 hours 6 minutes 7.008009 seconds|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+