Learning the Basics of SQL - Part One - The SELECT Statement

Let's get straight down to business.

We'll start with the most often used statement:

THE SELECT STATEMENT:

Basic syntax:

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name

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For example (using the table Products in the previous post):

SELECT prod_name FROM Products

Will return :

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Or we can retrieve multiple columns such as:

SELECT prod_name, prod_price FROM Products

and you'll get:

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Or you can use wildcards and retrieve all the columns:

SELECT * FROM Products

and you'll see:

In SQL, spaces don't count, and Enter presses don't either. Meaning that you can type:

SELECT * FROM Products

and get the same results.

Next we will discuss the WHERE clause. Before that, I will post instructions on how to open the database in Microsoft Access and send it SQL queries.