Find records without any related rows.

SQLite: NOT EXISTS avoids the NULL pitfalls of NOT IN when the subquery column can be missing.

CREATE TABLE people (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name VARCHAR(30));
CREATE TABLE orders (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, person_id INTEGER, amount INTEGER);
INSERT INTO people VALUES (1,'Ada'),(2,'Grace'),(3,'Lin');
INSERT INTO orders VALUES (1,1,10),(2,1,20),(3,2,5);
SELECT p.name FROM people p WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM orders o WHERE o.person_id=p.id) ORDER BY p.id;

Expected output EXAMPLE

Lin

Details

Requires SQLite 3.40 or later. Run with sqlite3 demo.db in a scratch directory. Result rows below use | between columns, without headers; client display formatting may differ. NOT EXISTS avoids the NULL pitfalls of NOT IN when the subquery column can be missing. The CREATE and INSERT statements provide all input data. Run the complete example in a fresh scratch database or schema.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · 2026-11-02 18:28:22 UTC · SQLite 3.45.1 · bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel: x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale: uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation: Execute the exact SQL in a fresh database/schema; serialize result rows with | separators
Container image ID: sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3
Code SHA-256: 2c2fccf52471e365fe64749f0d88aa1c32d012990b66ae3b550d8abf8d0929c0
Dependencies: bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

# No input files required.

Observed standard output

Lin

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.