MySQL 4.1 and up supports subqueries and derived tables. A “subquery” is a SELECT statement nested within another statement. A “derived table” (an unnamed view) is a subquery in the FROM clause of another statement. See Section 13.2.8, “Subquery Syntax”.

For MySQL versions older than 4.1, most subqueries can be rewritten using joins or other methods. See Section 13.2.8.11, “Rewriting Subqueries as Joins for Earlier MySQL Versions”, for examples that show how to do this.