sql query to return differences between two tables

(   SELECT * FROM table1
    EXCEPT
    SELECT * FROM table2)  
UNION ALL
(   SELECT * FROM table2
    EXCEPT
    SELECT * FROM table1) 

IF you have tables A and B, both with colum C, here are the records, which are present in table A but not in B:

SELECT A.*
FROM A
    LEFT JOIN B ON (A.C = B.C)
WHERE B.C IS NULL

To get all the differences with a single query, a full join must be used, like this:

SELECT A.*, B.*
FROM A
    FULL JOIN B ON (A.C = B.C)
WHERE A.C IS NULL OR B.C IS NULL

What you need to know in this case is, that when a record can be found in A, but not in B, than the columns which come from B will be NULL, and similarly for those, which are present in B and not in A, the columns from A will be null.