SQL SELECT Statement

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This chapter will explain the SELECT and the SELECT * statements.

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

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name

and

SELECT * FROM table_name

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

An SQL SELECT Example

The "Persons" table:

P_Id LastName FirstName Address City
1 Karmen Kasa Los Angels - USA New Orleans
2 Jacob Mary Los Angels - USA New Orleans
3 Maxwell Glen Australia Sydney

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

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT LastName,FirstName FROM Persons

The result-set will look like this:

LastName FirstName
Karmen Kasa
Jacob Mary
Maxwell Glen

SELECT * Example

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

We use the following SELECT statement: 

SELECT * FROM Persons

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

The result-set will look like this:

P_Id LastName FirstName Address City
1 Karmen Kasa Los Angels - USA New Orleans
2 Jacob Mary Los Angels - USA New Orleans
3 Maxwell Glen Australia Sydney

Navigation in a Result-set

Most database software systems allow navigation in the result-set with programming functions, like: Move-To-First-Record, Get-Record-Content, Move-To-Next-Record, etc.

Programming functions like these are not a part of this tutorial. To learn about accessing data with function calls, please visit our ADO tutorial or our PHP tutorial.


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