Retrieving Data with a SELECT Statement

In this article, I will go through the main idea of retrieving data with a SELECT statement.

After reading this article you will be able to :

• Write a SELECT statement.
• Tell a database where the data will come FROM.
• SELECT either all or particular columns from a table in a query.
• Limit the amount of data returned inside a query.

Returning column data using a SELECT query.

There are two pieces of information needed for a SELECT statement. The first is the column name and the second is where you want to select it FROM.

# column name
SELECT prod_name
# table name
FROM Products

Retrieving more than a single column can be done using the following:

# column names
SELECT prod_name,
       prod_id,
       prod_price
# table name
FROM Products;

You will have noticed that the formatting has changed, you can write the query in the same line, but this way since is easier to read.

Retrieving Multiple Columns Using a Wildcard

You can request all columns by using the asterisk.

# column names
SELECT *
# table name
FROM Products;

Why Limit Results?

You can imagine big tables might display thousands or millions of rows of data. So we can LIMIT our data.

# column name
SELECT prod_name
# table name
FROM Products
# limit data
LIMIT 5

This syntax for limiting data changes slightly based on the different systems used. The example above uses SQLite. If you know which system you are using, a simple google search will help you find what you need.

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