Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Basic Selection
The basic elements of thesyntax for the SELECT statement are the SELECT keyword, the
column you want to select, and the table from which to retrieve the data:
SELECT column FROM table ;
If you want to select more than onecolumn, list them separated bycommas. If you want to
select all of the columns in a table, you can use the asterisk as a wildcard instead of listing
all of the columns. Let's use the rookery database you just loaded with data to see a
practical example of this basic syntax. Enter the following SQL statement in mysql to get a
list of all of the columns and rows in the birds table:
USE rookery ;
SELECT * FROM birds ;
This is the most minimal SELECT statement that you can execute successfully. It tells
MySQL to retrieve all of the data contained in the birds table. It displays the columns in
the order you defined them in the table's CREATE or ALTER statements, and displays rows
in the order they are found in the table, which is usually the order that the data was entered
into the table.
To select only certain columns, do something like this:
SELECT bird_id , scientific_name , common_name
FROM birds ;
This SELECT statement selects only three columns from each row found in the birds
table. There are also many ways to choose particular rows, change the order in which they
are displayed, and limit the number shown. These are covered in the following sections of
this chapter.
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