docs/UserGuide/Query-Data/Result-Format.md

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# Query Result Alignment

In addition, IoTDB supports two other results set format: 'align by device' and 'disable align'.

## align by device

The 'align by device' indicates that the deviceId is considered as a column. Therefore, there are totally limited columns in the dataset. 

The SQL statement is:

```sql
select * from root.ln.** where time <= 2017-11-01T00:01:00 align by device
```

The result shows below:

```
+-----------------------------+-----------------+-----------+------+--------+
|                         Time|           Device|temperature|status|hardware|
+-----------------------------+-----------------+-----------+------+--------+
|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|root.ln.wf01.wt01|      25.96|  true|    null|
|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|root.ln.wf01.wt01|      24.36|  true|    null|
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.001+08:00|root.ln.wf02.wt02|       null|  true|      v1|
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.002+08:00|root.ln.wf02.wt02|       null| false|      v2|
|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|root.ln.wf02.wt02|       null|  true|      v2|
|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|root.ln.wf02.wt02|       null|  true|      v2|
+-----------------------------+-----------------+-----------+------+--------+
Total line number = 6
It costs 0.012s
```

### disable align

The 'disable align' indicates that there are 2 columns for each time series in the result set. Disable Align Clause can only be used at the end of a query statement. Disable Align Clause cannot be used with Aggregation, Fill Statements, Group By or Group By Device Statements, but can with Limit Statements. The display principle of the result table is that only when the column (or row) has existing data will the column (or row) be shown, with nonexistent cells being empty.

The SQL statement is:

```sql
select * from root.ln.** where time <= 2017-11-01T00:01:00 disable align
```

The result shows below:

```
+-----------------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+
|                         Time|root.ln.wf02.wt02.hardware|                         Time|root.ln.wf02.wt02.status|                         Time|root.ln.wf01.wt01.temperature|                         Time|root.ln.wf01.wt01.status|
+-----------------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.001+08:00|                        v1|1970-01-01T08:00:00.001+08:00|                    true|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|                        25.96|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|                    true|
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.002+08:00|                        v2|1970-01-01T08:00:00.002+08:00|                   false|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|                        24.36|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|                    true|
|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|                        v2|2017-11-01T00:00:00.000+08:00|                    true|                         null|                         null|                         null|                    null|
|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|                        v2|2017-11-01T00:01:00.000+08:00|                    true|                         null|                         null|                         null|                    null|
+-----------------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------+
Total line number = 4
It costs 0.018s
```