Operators

Arithmetic operators

CQL supports these operators:

-: Use the minus symbol for either the unary negate operand or subtraction.
+: Use the plus symbol for addition.
*: Use the asterisk symbol for multiplication.
/: Use the forward slash symbol for division.
%: Use the percent symbol to return the remainder from division.

The *, /, and % operators have a higher precedence than the + and - operators. Higher precedence operators are evaluated before lower precedence operators. If two operators in an expression have the same precedence, they are evaluated from left to right based on the operator position in the expression.

Return types

The return type of an arithmetic expression is based on the types of the input operands. In the following table, left and right refer to the type of the operand on the left and right of the operator. For example, in the expression a + b, a is the left operand and b is the right operand; if a is an int operand and b is a float operand, a float is returned.


	tinyint	smallint	int	bigint	counter	float	double	varint	decimal
left
tinyint	tinyint	smallint	int	bigint	bigint	float	double	varint	decimal
smallint	smallint	smallint	int	bigint	bigint	float	double	varint	decimal
int	int	int	int	bigint	bigint	float	double	varint	decimal
bigint	bigint	bigint	bigint	bigint	bigint	double	double	varint	decimal
counter	bigint	bigint	bigint	bigint	bigint	double	double	varint	decimal
float	float	float	float	double	double	float	double	decimal	decimal
double	double	double	double	double	double	double	double	decimal	decimal
varint	varint	varint	varint	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal
decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal	decimal

Dates and times

A time duration can be added (+) or subtracted (-) from a timestamp or a date to create a new timestamp or date. For example, the following query returns cycling races that occur one day before the supplied date:

SELECT *
FROM cycling.race_times
WHERE race_date = '2017-04-15' - 1d;

Multiple columns

Multiple columns can be used in an expression, as shown in the following queries:

SELECT (emp_id + dept_id) / age
FROM cycling.mechanic;

SELECT emp_id + dept_id / age
FROM cycling.mechanic;