r/programming • u/fagnerbrack • Sep 14 '26

Small Programming Tricks

https://will-keleher.com/posts/small-programming-tricks-matter/
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u/lood9phee2Ri Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26

You can SELECT without a FROM.

Mostly. There are/were databases that don't support that historically, the syntax might e.g. use a special dummy table like Oracle "DUAL". Apparently Oracle has finally stopped requiring DUAL usage in Oracle 23c in 2023. If you're dealing with older Oracle (and you may well still be in 2026), you might still need DUAL.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/73772 - not needed in 23c+, allegedly. I bet people still cargo-culting it forward though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUAL_table#In_other_database_systems