SQL: Visual QuickStart Guide, Third Edition

Chapter 4. Retrieving Data from a Table

This chapter introduces SQL’s workhorse—the SELECT statement. Most SQL work involves retrieving and manipulating data by using this one (albeit complex) statement. SELECT retrieves rows, columns, and derived values from one or more tables in a database; its syntax is:

SELECT columns
  FROM tables
  [JOIN joins]
  [WHERE search_condition]
  [GROUP BY grouping_columns]
  [HAVING search_condition]
  [ORDER BY sort_columns];

SELECT, FROM, ORDER BY, and WHERE are covered in this chapter, GROUP BY and HAVING in Chapter 6, and JOIN in Chapter 7. By convention, I call only a SELECT statement a query because it returns a result set. DBMS documentation and other books might refer to any SQL statement as a query. Although SELECT ...