Chapter 2
An Overview of the SELECT
Statement
In Chapter 1, our quick introduction to SQL, we briefly met the main SQL statements that we will encounter as web developers:
-
CREATE
,ALTER
,DROP
-
INSERT
,UPDATE
,DELETE
… and -
SELECT
In this chapter, we’ll begin our more detailed look into SQL with an overview of the SELECT
statement.
The SELECT
Statement
The SELECT
statement’s single purpose is to retrieve data from our database and return it to us in a tabular result set. In Chapter 1, we saw some of its syntax:
SELECT expression(s) involving keywords, identifiers, and constants FROM tabular structure(s)
The SELECT
and FROM
clauses are mandatory; what we didn’t reveal in Chapter 1 is that the SELECT
statement can include optional ...
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