SELECT Statement

SELECT Statement

The SELECT statement is used to retrieve data from a database. The data is returned as a table of results.

Select specific columns

SELECT CustomerName, Country FROM Customers;

This returns only the CustomerName and Country columns.

Select all columns

SELECT * FROM Customers;

The * wildcard returns every column.

Without FROM

Some databases let you run SELECT without a table to compute a value:

SELECT 5 + 5;        -- returns 10 (MySQL)
SELECT NOW();        -- current date and time

Real example output

SELECT CustomerName, Country FROM Customers;

Column order matters

The columns come back in the order you list them, so SELECT Country, CustomerName returns Country first.

TL;DR

• SELECT column1, column2 returns chosen columns.
• SELECT * returns every column.
• Results come back as a table in the order you list them.
• You can compute values with SELECT too.