Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Fourth Edition

Lesson 2. Retrieving Data

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the SELECT statement to retrieve one or more columns of data from a table.

The SELECT Statement

As explained in Lesson 1, “Understanding SQL,” SQL statements are made up of plain English terms. These terms are called keywords, and every SQL statement is made up of one or more keywords. The SQL statement that you’ll probably use most frequently is the SELECT statement. Its purpose is to retrieve information from one or more tables.

Keyword

A reserved word that is part of the SQL language. Never name a table or column using a keyword. Appendix E, “SQL Reserved Words,” lists some of the more common reserved words.

To use SELECT to retrieve table data you must, at a minimum, specify ...