VALUES

Enterprise command reference.

Command Snapshot

Field	Value
Category	DQL
Mutates Data	No
Scope	Statement
Privilege Model	Requires read privilege (DQL) on referenced relations.

Executes the VALUES SQL command with MonkDB distributed runtime semantics.

VALUES ( expression1 [, expression2, ...] ),
       ( expression1 [, expression2, ...] ),
       ...

Use schema-qualified identifiers in automation and automation pipelines.
Validate behavior in staging for cluster-impacting or governance-impacting changes.
Confirm runtime effects through system tables and metrics before and after execution.

Use for read/analytics workloads where query correctness and plan shape are primary concerns.
Use when you need SQL-native filtering, joins, aggregation, or explainability.

Avoid for heavy recurring ETL if precomputed tables or materialized pipelines are more efficient.
Avoid unbounded scans in production without partition or predicate controls.

Symptom	Likely Cause	Action
Permission denied / unauthorized	Missing privilege on object or cluster scope	Re-run with required grants or elevated admin role.
Analysis/parse error	Syntax variant or object shape mismatch	Compare with canonical syntax and object definition.
Runtime failure under load	Resource limits, breaker pressure, or node state transitions	Check `sys.jobs`, `sys.operations`, `sys.checks`, and retry after mitigation.

The VALUES expression is used to generate a result set of constant rows. It's like a virtual table that exists only for the duration of the query.

It can be: - Queried directly (SELECT). - Used in INSERT statements. - Joined with other tables (in subqueries or CTEs).

VALUES ( expression1 [, expression2, ...] ),
       ( expression1 [, expression2, ...] ),
       ...

Each tuple (row) must have the same number of columns, and types must be consistent or implicitly castable (e.g., 1 and '1' would cause an error).

VALUES (1, 'one'), (2, 'two'), (3, 'three');

Output:

You can use VALUES to return ad-hoc rows — great for testing functions, formatting, or expressions.

SELECT * FROM (
  VALUES (100, 'active'), (200, 'inactive')
) AS status_counts(id, status);

This is the most common use of VALUES.

INSERT INTO products (id, name, price)
VALUES (1, 'Keyboard', 49.99),
       (2, 'Mouse', 19.99),
       (3, 'Monitor', 129.99);

Each tuple maps to the column order defined.

VALUES can be used as an inline table in a JOIN, IN, or EXISTS clause. Example: Filter real table using VALUES

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE department IN (
  SELECT col1 FROM (VALUES ('Engineering'), ('Sales')) AS temp(col1)
);

Combine VALUES with UNION ALL for static sets:

SELECT * FROM (
  VALUES ('MonkDB', 'Database'), ('PostgreSQL', 'Database'), ('Redis', 'Cache')
) AS tech(name, type)
WHERE type = 'Database';

All values in the same column position across rows must have compatible types.
MonkDB will try implicit conversion, but mismatched types like 1 and 'one' in the same column will raise errors.

-- No Will fail due to type mismatch:
VALUES (1, 'one'), ('two', 2);

You can INSERT using VALUES and return the inserted values:

INSERT INTO cities (id, name)
VALUES (1, 'Berlin'), (2, 'Mumbai')
RETURNING *;

Feature	MonkDB Support	Notes
`DEFAULT` in `VALUES`	No Not supported	Must explicitly provide all values
Multi-column type mismatch	No Error	Ensure consistent column types
Named `VALUES` without alias	No Error-prone	Use `AS alias(col1, col2)` when needed