Is it possible to have a tableless select with multiple rows?

Posted by outis on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by outis
Published on 2010-05-22T00:38:11Z Indexed on 2010/05/22 0:40 UTC
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A SELECT without a FROM clause gets us a multiple columns without querying a table:

SELECT 17+23, REPLACE('bannanna', 'nn', 'n'), RAND(), CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;

How can we write a query that results in multiple rows without referring to a table? Basically, abuse SELECT to turn it into a data definition statement. The result could have a single column or multiple columns.

I'm most interested in a DBMS neutral answer, but others (e.g. based on UNPIVOT) are welcome. There's no technique application behind this question; it's more theoretical than practical.

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