SQL SELECT Statement

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 FROM table_name

SELECT * FROM table_name

An SQL SELECT Example

The "student" table:

Student _No	Student_Name	Address	Year_Study	Sex	Date_of_birth	Course_No
ST100	K.Ranjan	Kandy	1	Male	17/01/1988	C1
ST101	N.Kumanan	Jaffna	2	Male	15/12/1989	C2
ST102	S.Ranjini	Vavuniya	1	Female	17/01/1989	C1
ST103	K.Dias	Colombo	3	Male	22/07/1987	C1
ST104	A.Kavitha	Matara	3	Female	20/03/1985	C2
ST105	L.Lavanya	Galle	2	Female	22/04/1989	C2
ST106	G.Moorthy	Jaffna	2	Male	12/01/1986	C1
ST107	F.Nathan	Matara	2	Male	29/01/1990	C3
ST108	A.H.M.Akmal	Puttalam	1	Male	12/12/1990	C3

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

We use the following SELECT statement:

 SELECT Student_Name,Date_of_Birth from student;

The result-set will look like this:

+--------------+---------------+
| Student_Name | Date_of_Birth |
+--------------+---------------+
| K.Ranjan     | 1988-01-17    |
| N.Kumanan    | 1989-12-15    |
| S.Ranjini    | 1989-01-17    |
| K.Dias       | 1987-07-22    |
| A.Kavitha    | 1985-03-20    |
| L.Lavanya    | 1989-04-22    |
| G.Moorthy    | 1986-01-12    |
| F.Nathan     | 1990-01-29    |
| A.H.M.Akmal  | 1990-12-12    |
+--------------+---------------+