In MariaDB, LEAST() is a built-in function that returns the least (i.e. smallest/minimum-valued) argument from its list of arguments.
To get the greatest value, use GREATEST().
Syntax
The syntax goes like this:
LEAST(value1,value2,...)Where value1,value2,… is two or more arguments for which to return the smallest/minimum-valued.
Example
Here’s an example:
SELECT LEAST(3, 8);Result:
+-------------+ | LEAST(3, 8) | +-------------+ | 3 | +-------------+
Here’s another example that uses more arguments:
SELECT LEAST(10, 7, 9, 12, 80, 8, 14);Result:
+--------------------------------+ | LEAST(10, 7, 9, 12, 80, 8, 14) | +--------------------------------+ | 7 | +--------------------------------+
Expressions
The arguments can include expressions like this:
SELECT LEAST(2 * 3, 1 * 3);Result:
+---------------------+ | LEAST(2 * 3, 1 * 3) | +---------------------+ | 3 | +---------------------+
Strings
The arguments don’t need to be numeric. For example, here’s a comparison of strings:
SELECT LEAST('a', 'b', 'c');Result:
+----------------------+
| LEAST('a', 'b', 'c') |
+----------------------+
| a |
+----------------------+
Dates
Here’s a comparison of date strings:
SELECT LEAST('2020-01-01', '2021-01-01');Result:
+-----------------------------------+
| LEAST('2020-01-01', '2021-01-01') |
+-----------------------------------+
| 2020-01-01 |
+-----------------------------------+
Mixed Types
The MariaDB documentation states that if any argument is a case-sensitive string, the arguments are compared as case-sensitive strings. However, you may find that mixing types can produce unexpected results, and a warning.
Example:
SELECT LEAST('Cat', 10);Result:
+------------------+
| LEAST('Cat', 10) |
+------------------+
| 0 |
+------------------+
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.000 sec)
Check the warning:
SHOW WARNINGS;Result:
+---------+------+-----------------------------------------+ | Level | Code | Message | +---------+------+-----------------------------------------+ | Warning | 1292 | Truncated incorrect DOUBLE value: 'Cat' | +---------+------+-----------------------------------------+
Null Arguments
LEAST() returns null if any argument is null:
SELECT LEAST(1, null, 3);Result:
+-------------------+ | LEAST(1, null, 3) | +-------------------+ | NULL | +-------------------+
Missing Arguments
Calling LEAST() with the wrong number of arguments, or without any arguments results in an error:
SELECT LEAST();Result:
ERROR 1582 (42000): Incorrect parameter count in the call to native function 'LEAST'
And:
SELECT LEAST(10);Result:
ERROR 1582 (42000): Incorrect parameter count in the call to native function 'LEAST'