Issue using MINUS clause in SQL

Question

While using minus clause in between two statements giving some error. Can someone help me with this?

Error is Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 101 Incorrect syntax near 'MINUS'.

 SELECT a from (SELECT DISTINCT(name) as a FROM hack WHERE name LIKE '%') a
 MINUS
 SELECT b from (SELECT DISTINCT(name) as b FROM hack WHERE name LIKE '[aeiou]%[aeiou]') b

Answer 1

MINUS is exist in Oracle. By seeing your error message, I hope you are looking in SQL Server.

In SQL Server, EXCEPT is the correct replacement for MINUS.

SELECT DISTINCT name        
FROM hack
WHERE name LIKE '%'

EXCEPT

SELECT DISTINCT name
FROM hack
WHERE name LIKE '[aeiou]%[aeiou]'

Answer 2

You can simplify the logic to:

SELECT DISTINCT name 
FROM hac
WHERE name NOT LIKE '[aeiou]%[aeiou]'

A simple comparison should be much more efficient that multiple comparisons along with set operators.