View a markdown version of this page

GREATEST and LEAST functions - Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift will no longer support the use of Python UDFs after June 30, 2026. We will start enforcing it in phases. For more information on the details of Python end of life and migration options, see the blog post that was published on June 30, 2025.

GREATEST and LEAST functions

Returns the largest or smallest value from a list of any number of expressions.

Syntax

GREATEST (value [, ...]) LEAST (value [, ...])

Parameters

expression_list

A comma-separated list of expressions, such as column names. The expressions must all be convertible to a common data type. NULL values in the list are ignored. If all of the expressions evaluate to NULL, the result is NULL.

Returns

Returns the greatest (for GREATEST) or least (for LEAST) value from the provided list of expressions.

Example

The following example returns the highest value alphabetically for firstname or lastname.

select firstname, lastname, greatest(firstname,lastname) from users where userid < 10 order by 3; firstname | lastname | greatest -----------+-----------+----------- Lars | Ratliff | Ratliff Reagan | Hodge | Reagan Colton | Roy | Roy Barry | Roy | Roy Tamekah | Juarez | Tamekah Rafael | Taylor | Taylor Victor | Hernandez | Victor Vladimir | Humphrey | Vladimir Mufutau | Watkins | Watkins (9 rows)