Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft® SQL Server T-SQL in 10 Minutes, Second Edition

Lesson 4. Retrieving Data

In this lesson, you 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 you probably use most frequently is the SELECT statement. Its purpose is to retrieve information from one or more tables.

To use SELECT to retrieve table data, at a minimum you must specify two pieces of information—what you want to select and from where you want to select it.

Note: Make Sure the Right Database Is in Use

In order to follow along with the examples, make sure that ...