Postgres Advanced Joins Cheat Sheet

Lateral, recursive, and set operations

Last Updated: November 21, 2025

Join Types

Clause Use
LATERAL Reference subqueries
RECURSIVE CTE Walk hierarchies
UNION/INTERSECT Combine sets

Commands

SELECT * FROM users u, LATERAL (SELECT ...) sub
Correlate
WITH RECURSIVE
Define recursion
UNION ALL
Include duplicates

Advice

Benchmark query plans, add indexes for recursive work, and avoid unnecessary cross joins.

💡 Pro Tip: Prefer lateral for referencing previous rows, use recursive carefully, and leverage EXPLAIN for complex joins.
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