FYI: MonetDB SQL also accepts WHERE TRUE AND ... if you prefer that syntax instead of WHERE 1=1 AND ... Also it supports columns of datatype BOOLEAN, so you can write SQL queries like: create table person (name varchar(20) not null primary key, married boolean default false not null); insert into person (name) values ('jan'); insert into person (name, married) values ('isabelle', true); select name, married from person where TRUE; select name, married from person where married; select name, married from person where married = true; select name, married from person where not married; On 17-10-14 11:00, gms_xy@gmx.de wrote:

To have a human-readable SQL code, I am used in following code formatting:

SELECT a FROM tbl WHERE 1=1 --<<-- absolutely useless, but nice for formatting AND col1 = 1 AND col2 = 2 AND col3 = 3

Instead of "1=1", some other databases accept "TRUE". When I have multiple OR-conditions, I start with "1=0" or "FALSE". Writing statements this way I noticed long execution times in MonetDB. Omitting the logical where-condition "1=1" results in very fast execution time. So I guess, MonetDB is really checking on every row, if 1=1.