SQL Tutorial

SELECT Statement Basics

The SQL SELECT statement queries data from tables in the database. The statement begins with the SELECT keyword. The basic SELECT statement has 3 clauses:

SELECT
FROM
WHERE

The SELECT clause specifies the table columns that are retrieved. The FROM clause specifies the tables accessed. The WHERE clause specifies which table rows are used. The WHERE clause is optional; if missing, all table rows are used.

For example,

SELECT name FROM s WHERE city='Rome'

This query accesses rows from the table - s. It then filters those rows where the city column contains Rome. Finally, the query retrieves the name column from each filtered row. Using the example s table, this query produces:

name
Mario

A detailed description of the query actions:

The FROM clause accesses the s table. Contents:
The WHERE clause filters the rows of the FROM table to use those whose city column contains Rome. This chooses a single row from s:
The SELECT clause retrieves the name column from the rows filtered by the WHERE clause:

sno	name	city
S1	Pierre	Paris
S2	John	London
S3	Mario	Rome

sno	name	city
S3	Mario	Rome

The remainder of this subsection examines the 3 major clauses of the SELECT statement, detailing their syntax and semantics:

SELECT Clause -- specifies the table columns retrieved
FROM Clause -- specifies the tables to be accessed
WHERE Clause -- specifies which rows in the FROM tables to use

Extended query capabilities are covered in the next sub-section.

SELECT Clause

The SELECT clause is mandatory. It specifies a list of columns to be retrieved from the tables in the FROM clause. It has the following general format:

SELECT [ALL|DISTINCT] select-list

select-list is a list of column names separated by commas. The ALL and DISTINCT specifiers are optional. DISTINCT specifies that duplicate rows are discarded. A duplicate row is when each corresponding select-list column has the same value. The default is ALL, which retains duplicate rows.

For example,

SELECT descr, color FROM p

The column names in the select list can be qualified by the appropriate table name:

SELECT p.descr, p.color FROM p

A column in the select list can be renamed by following the column name with the new name. For example:

SELECT name supplier, city location FROM s

This produces:

supplier	location
Pierre	Paris
John	London
Mario	Rome

The select list may also contain expressions. See Expressions.

A special select list consisting of a single '*' requests all columns in all tables in the FROM clause. For example,

SELECT * FROM sp

sno	pno	qty
S1	P1	NULL
S2	P1	200
S3	P1	1000
S3	P2	200

The * delimiter will retrieve just the columns of a single table when qualified by the table name. For example:

SELECT sp.* FROM sp

This produces the same result as the previous example.

An unqualified * cannot be combined with other elements in the select list; it must be stand alone. However, a qualified * can be combined with other elements. For example,

SELECT sp.*, city
FROM sp, s
WHERE sp.sno=s.sno

sno	pno	qty	city
S1	P1	NULL	Paris
S2	P1	200	London
S3	P1	1000	Rome
S3	P2	200	Rome

Note: this is an example of a query joining 2 tables. See Joining Tables.

FROM Clause

The FROM clause always follows the SELECT clause. It lists the tables accessed by the query. For example,

SELECT * FROM s

When the From List contains multiple tables, commas separate the table names. For example,

SELECT sp.*, city
FROM sp, s
WHERE sp.sno=s.sno

When the From List has multiple tables, they must be joined together. See Joining Tables.

Correlation Names

Like columns in the select list, tables in the from list can be renamed by following the table name with the new name. For example,

SELECT supplier.name FROM s supplier

The new name is known as the correlation (or range) name for the table. Self joins require correlation names.

WHERE Clause

The WHERE clause is optional. When specified, it always follows the FROM clause. The WHERE clause filters rows from the FROM clause tables. Omitting the WHERE clause specifies that all rows are used.

Following the WHERE keyword is a logical expression, also known as a predicate.

The predicate evaluates to a SQL logical value -- true, false or unknown. The most basic predicate is a comparison:

color = 'Red'

This predicate returns:

true -- if the color column contains the string value -- 'Red',
false -- if the color column contains another string value (not 'Red'), or
unknown -- if the color column contains null.

Generally, a comparison expression compares the contents of a table column to a literal, as above. A comparison expression may also compare two columns to each other. Table joins use this type of comparison. See Joining Tables.

The = (equals) comparison operator compares two values for equality. Additional comparison operators are:

> -- greater than
< -- less than
>= -- greater than or equal to
<= -- less than or equal to
<> -- not equal to

For example,

SELECT * FROM sp WHERE qty >= 200

sno	pno	qty
S2	P1	200
S3	P1	1000
S3	P2	200

Note: In the sp table, the qty column for one of the rows contains null. The comparison - qty >= 200, evaluates to unknown for this row. In the final result of a query, rows with a WHERE clause evaluating to unknown (or false) are eliminated (filtered out).

Both operands of a comparison should be the same data type, however automatic conversions are performed between numeric, datetime and interval types. The CAST expression provides explicit type conversions; see Expressions.

Extended Comparisons

In addition to the basic comparisons described above, SQL supports extended comparison operators -- BETWEEN, IN, LIKE and IS NULL.

BETWEEN Operator
The BETWEEN operator implements a range comparison, that is, it tests whether a value is between two other values. BETWEEN comparisons have the following format:
This comparison tests if value-1 is greater than or equal to value-2 and less than or equal to value-3. It is equivalent to the following predicate:
Or, if NOT is included:
For example,
IN Operator
The IN operator implements comparison to a list of values, that is, it tests whether a value matches any value in a list of values. IN comparisons have the following general format:
This comparison tests if value-1 matches value-2 or matches value-3, and so on. It is equivalent to the following logical predicate:
or if NOT is included:
For example,

name
Pierre
Mario

LIKE Operator

The LIKE operator implements a pattern match comparison, that is, it matches a string value against a pattern string containing wild-card characters.

The wild-card characters for LIKE are percent -- '%' and underscore -- '_'. Underscore matches any single character. Percent matches zero or more characters.

Examples,

Match Value Pattern Result

'abc' '_b_' True

'ab' '_b_' False

'abc' '%b%' True

'ab' '%b%' True

'abc' 'a_' False

'ab' 'a_' True

'abc' 'a%_' True

'ab' 'a%_' True

Match Value	Pattern	Result
'abc'	'_b_'	True
'ab'	'_b_'	False
'abc'	'%b%'	True
'ab'	'%b%'	True
'abc'	'a_'	False
'ab'	'a_'	True
'abc'	'a%_'	True
'ab'	'a%_'	True

LIKE comparison has the following general format:

value-1 [NOT] LIKE value-2 [ESCAPE value-3]

All values must be string (character). This comparison uses value-2 as a pattern to match value-1. The optional ESCAPE sub-clause specifies an escape character for the pattern, allowing the pattern to use '%' and '_' (and the escape character) for matching. The ESCAPE value must be a single character string. In the pattern, the ESCAPE character precedes any character to be escaped.

For example, to match a string ending with '%', use:

x LIKE '%/%' ESCAPE '/'

A more contrived example that escapes the escape character:

y LIKE '/%//%' ESCAPE '/'

... matches any string beginning with '%/'.

The optional NOT reverses the result so that:

z NOT LIKE 'abc%'

is equivalent to:

NOT z LIKE 'abc%'

IS NULL Operator
A database null in a table column has a special meaning -- the value of the column is not currently known (missing), however its value may be known at a later time. A database null may represent any value in the future, but the value is not available at this time. Since two null columns may eventually be assigned different values, one null can't be compared to another in the conventional way. The following syntax is illegal in SQL:
A special comparison operator -- IS NULL, tests a column for null. It has the following general format:
This comparison returns true if value-1 contains a null and false otherwise. The optional NOT reverses the result:
is equivalent to:
For example,

Logical Operators

The logical operators are AND, OR, NOT. They take logical expressions as operands and produce a logical result (True, False, Unknown). In logical expressions, parentheses are used for grouping.

AND Operator

The AND operator combines two logical operands. The operands are comparisons or logical expressions. It has the following general format:

predicate-1 AND predicate-2

AND returns:

True -- if both operands evaluate to true
False -- if either operand evaluates to false
Unknown -- otherwise (one operand is true and the other is unknown or both are unknown)

Truth tables for AND:

AND T F U

T T F U

F F F F

U U F U

Input 1 Input 2 AND Result

True True True

True False False

False False False

False True False

Unknown Unknown Unknown

Unknown True Unknown

Unknown False False

True Unknown Unknown

False Unknown False

For example,

SELECT *
FROM sp
WHERE sno='S3' AND qty < 500

sno	pno	qty
S3	P2	200

OR Operator

The OR operator combines two logical operands. The operands are comparisons or logical expressions. It has the following general format:

predicate-1 OR predicate-2

OR returns:

True -- if either operand evaluates to true
False -- if both operands evaluate to false
Unknown -- otherwise (one operand is false and the other is unknown or both are unknown)

Truth tables for OR:

OR T F U

T T T T

F T F U

U T U U

Input 1 Input 2 OR Result

True True True

True False True

False False False

False True True

Unknown Unknown Unknown

Unknown True True

Unknown False Unknown

True Unknown True

False Unknown Unknown

For example,

SELECT *
FROM s
WHERE sno='S3' OR city = 'London'

sno	name	city
S2	John	London
S3	Mario	Rome

AND has a higher precedence than OR, so the following expression:

a OR b AND c

is equivalent to:

a OR (b AND c)

NOT Operator
The NOT operator inverts the result of a comparison expression or a logical expression. It has the following general format:
Truth tables for NOT:

NOT

T F

F T

U U

Input NOT Result

True False

False True

Unknown Unknown

Example query:

Extended Query Capabilities

In addition to the basic capabilities covered in this sub-section, the SELECT statement also support extended capabilities, described in the next sub-section:

Sorting Query Results -- using the ORDER BY clause
Expressions -- in the SELECT clause and WHERE clause
Joining Tables -- in the FROM clause
Subqueries -- embedding a query in another
Grouping Queries -- using the GROUP BY clause and HAVING clause
Aggregate Queries -- using Set Functions and the HAVING clause
Union Queries -- using the query operator, UNION

The other SQL-Data Statements (DML) are covered in -- SQL Modification Statements:

INSERT Statement -- add rows to tables
UPDATE Statement -- modify columns in table rows
DELETE Statement -- remove rows from tables

SQL-Data Statements

SQL Tutorial Main Page