TUTORIAL

The SQL SELECT Statement

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

The result is stored in a result table, called the result-set.

SQL SELECT Syntax

and

Note: SQL is not case sensitive. SELECT is the same as select

An SQL SELECT Example

The "Persons" table:

Now we want to select the content of the columns named "LastName" and "FirstName" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

The result-set will look like this:

SELECT * Example

Now we want to select all the columns from the "Persons" table.

We use the following SELECT statement: 

Tip: The asterisk (*) is a quick way of selecting all columns!

The result-set will look like this:

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

In a table, some of the columns may contain duplicate values. This is not a problem, however, sometimes you will want to list only the different (distinct) values in a table.

The DISTINCT keyword can be used to return only distinct (different) values.

SQL SELECT DISTINCT Syntax

SELECT DISTINCT Example

The "Persons" table:

Now we want to select only the distinct values from the column named "City" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

The result-set will look like this: