Learning PostgreSQL 11 - Third Edition

Querying data with SELECT statements

SELECT statements, SELECT queries, or just queries are used to retrieve data from a database. SELECT queries can have different sources: tables, views, functions, or the VALUES command. All of them are relations or can be treated as relations or return relations, which functions can do. The output of SELECT is also a relation that, in general, can have multiple columns and contain many rows. Since the result and the source of a query have the same nature in SQL, it is possible to use one SELECT query as a source for another statement. In this case, both queries are considered parts of one bigger query. The source of the data, output format, filters, grouping, ordering, and required transformations of the ...