PostgreSQL UPDATE Statement

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the PostgreSQL UPDATE statement to update existing data in a table.

Introduction to the PostgreSQL UPDATE statement

The PostgreSQL UPDATE statement allows you to update data in one or more columns of one or more rows in a table.

Here’s the basic syntax of the UPDATE statement:

UPDATE table_name
SET column1 = value1,
    column2 = value2,
    ...
WHERE condition;

In this syntax:

First, specify the name of the table that you want to update data after the UPDATE keyword.
Second, specify columns and their new values after SET keyword. The columns that do not appear in the SET clause retain their original values.
Third, determine which rows to update in the condition of the WHERE clause.

The WHERE clause is optional. If you omit the WHERE clause, the UPDATE statement will update all rows in the table.

When the UPDATE statement is executed successfully, it returns the following command tag:

UPDATE count

The count is the number of rows updated including rows whose values did not change.

Returning updated rows

The UPDATE statement has an optional RETURNING clause that returns the updated rows:

UPDATE table_name
SET column1 = value1,
    column2 = value2,
    ...
WHERE condition
RETURNING * | output_expression AS output_name;

PostgreSQL UPDATE examples

Let’s take some examples of using the PostgreSQL UPDATE statement.

Setting up a sample table

The following statements create a table called courses and insert data into it:

CREATE TABLE courses(
  course_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
  course_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  price DECIMAL(10,2) NOT NULL,
  description VARCHAR(500),
  published_date date
);


INSERT INTO courses( course_name, price, description, published_date)
VALUES
('PostgreSQL for Developers', 299.99, 'A complete PostgreSQL for Developers', '2020-07-13'),
('PostgreSQL Admininstration', 349.99, 'A PostgreSQL Guide for DBA', NULL),
('PostgreSQL High Performance', 549.99, NULL, NULL),
('PostgreSQL Bootcamp', 777.99, 'Learn PostgreSQL via Bootcamp', '2013-07-11'),
('Mastering PostgreSQL', 999.98, 'Mastering PostgreSQL in 21 Days', '2012-06-30');

SELECT * FROM courses;

Output:

course_id |         course_name         | price  |             description              | published_date
-----------+-----------------------------+--------+--------------------------------------+----------------
         1 | PostgreSQL for Developers   | 299.99 | A complete PostgreSQL for Developers | 2020-07-13
         2 | PostgreSQL Admininstration  | 349.99 | A PostgreSQL Guide for DBA           | null
         3 | PostgreSQL High Performance | 549.99 | null                                 | null
         4 | PostgreSQL Bootcamp         | 777.99 | Learn PostgreSQL via Bootcamp        | 2013-07-11
         5 | Mastering PostgreSQL        | 999.98 | Mastering PostgreSQL in 21 Days      | 2012-06-30
(5 rows)

1) Basic PostgreSQL UPDATE example

The following statement uses the UPDATE statement to update the course with id 3 by changing the published_date to '2020-08-01'.

UPDATE courses
SET published_date = '2020-08-01'
WHERE course_id = 3;

The statement returns the following message indicating that one row has been updated:

UPDATE 1

The following statement retrieves the course with id 3 to verify the update:

SELECT course_id, course_name, published_date
FROM courses
WHERE course_id = 3;

Output:

course_id |         course_name         | published_date
-----------+-----------------------------+----------------
         3 | PostgreSQL High Performance | 2020-08-01
(1 row)

2) Updating a row and returning the updated row

The following statement uses the UPDATE statement update published_date of the course id 2 to 2020-07-01 and returns the updated course.

UPDATE courses
SET published_date = '2020-07-01'
WHERE course_id = 2
RETURNING *;

Output:

course_id |        course_name         | price  |        description         | published_date
-----------+----------------------------+--------+----------------------------+----------------
         2 | PostgreSQL Admininstration | 349.99 | A PostgreSQL Guide for DBA | 2020-07-01
(1 row)

3) Updating a column with an expression

The following statement uses an UPDATE statement to increase the price of all the courses 5%:

UPDATE courses
SET price = price * 1.05;

Because we don’t use a WHERE clause, the UPDATE statement updates all the rows in the courses table.

Output:

UPDATE 5

The following statement retrieves data from the courses table to verify the update:

SELECT * FROM courses;

Output:

SELECT
  course_name,
  price
FROM
  courses;

Output:

course_name         |  price
-----------------------------+---------
 PostgreSQL for Developers   |  314.99
 PostgreSQL Bootcamp         |  816.89
 Mastering PostgreSQL        | 1049.98
 PostgreSQL High Performance |  577.49
 PostgreSQL Admininstration  |  367.49
(5 rows)

Summary

Use the UPDATE statement to update data in one or more columns of a table.
Specify a condition in a WHERE clause to determine which rows to update data.
Use the RETURNING clause to return the updated rows from the UPDATE statement