Select values from table which not match predefined

Question

I have several values, generated from PHP. Like 1, 10, 15, 17, 20. Also I have a table with several values, like:

id
1
3
10
12
15

I want to write a query, which will give me all numbers, which do not exist in table id column. In my example, values of 17 and 20 should be returned.

Answer 1

it will be much easy if you store those numbers in a temporary table so you can do join, eg

SELECT  a.*
FROM    temporaryTable a
        LEFT JOIN tableWithNumbers b
            ON a.ID = b.ID
WHERE   b.ID IS NULL

• SQLFiddle Demo

Answer 2

I would

SELECT id FROM table WHERE id IN (1, 10, 15, 17, 20)

Which will get you those which are in your set.

And then use some PHP array function to get the substract of the arrays.

Answer 3

You can use IN for that:

SELECT id FROM table WHERE id NOT IN (1, 10, 15, 17, 20)

MySQL documentation