PostgreSQL - UPDATE query with LIMIT

In this article, we would like to show you UPDATE query with LIMIT in PostgreSQL.

Practical example

To show you UPDATE query with LIMIT, we will use the following users table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example

In this example, we will update department_id column value for users from id value 3 (excluding user with id = 3). We will also limit the update to 4 users.

Query:

UPDATE "users" SET "department_id"= 10
WHERE "id" IN (
    SELECT "id" FROM (
        SELECT "id" FROM "users" 
        ORDER BY "id" ASC  
        LIMIT 3, 4
    ) subquery
);

Result:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE "users" (
	"id" SERIAL,
	"name" VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	"surname" VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	"department_id" INTEGER,
    "salary" DECIMAL(15,2) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY ("id")
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO "users"
	( "name", "surname", "department_id", "salary")
VALUES
	('John', 'Stewart', 1, '3512.00'),
	('Chris', 'Brown', 2, '1344.00'),
	('Kate', 'Lewis', 3, '6574.00'),
	('Ailisa', 'Gomez', 1, '6500.00'),
	('Gwendolyn', 'James', 2, '4200.00'),
	('Simon', 'Collins', 4, '3320.00'),
	('Taylor', 'Martin', 2, '1500.00'),
	('Andrew', 'Thompson', 1, '2100.00');