SQL Select Statement

The SELECT statement selects columns of data from a database.

The tabular result is stored in a result table (called the result set).

The SELECT Statement

The SELECT statement selects columns of data from a database.

Use it to SELECT information FROM a table like this:

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name

Example: Select Columns from a Table

To select the columns named "LastName" and "FirstName", use a SELECT statement like this:

SELECT LastName,FirstName FROM Persons

The "Persons" table:

The result:

Example: Select all Columns

To select all columns from the "Persons" table, use a * symbol instead of column name like this: 

SELECT * FROM Persons

The result:

The Result Table

The result from a SQL query is stored in a result set. The result set can be thought of as a result table. Most database software allow navigation of the result set with programming functions like: Move-To-First-Record, Get-Record-Content, Move-To-Next-Record......

Programming functions like these are not a part of this tutorial.

If you want to learn more about accessing SQL data with function calls, study our ADO tutorial.

Semicolon after SQL Statements?

Many SQL tutorials insist that you should always end an SQL statement with a semicolon.

That is not correct. But semicolon is a standard way to end an SQL statement (and to separate different SQL statements) in systems that allow more than one SQL statement to be executed in the same call to a database server.

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