The SQL SELECT Statement

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

Example: Return data from the Customers table:

SELECT CustomerName, City FROM Customers;
        

Syntax

The syntax for the SELECT statement is as follows:

SELECT column1, column2, ...
        FROM table_name;
        

Here:

• column1, column2, … are the field names of the table you want to select data from.
• table_name represents the name of the table you want to select data from.

Demo Database

Below is a selection from the Customers table used in the examples:

CustomerID	CustomerName	ContactName	Address	City	PostalCode	Country
1	Shree Tiffins	Ravi Kumar	Dadar East	Mumbai	400014	India
2	Kolkata Sweets	Aarti Kapoor	Park Street	Kolkata	700017	India
3	Hyderabad Biryani House	Ali Khan	Jubilee Hills	Hyderabad	500033	India
4	Punjab Dhaba	Sandeep Singh	Sector 15	Chandigarh	160015	India
5	Delhi Delights	Neha Sharma	Connaught Place	New Delhi	110001	India

Select ALL Columns

If you want to return all columns, without specifying every column name, you can use the SELECT * syntax:

Example: Return all the columns from the Customers table:

SELECT * FROM Customers;
        

Example 1: SELECT Specific Columns

To select specific columns, you can list them after the SELECT keyword:

SELECT CustomerName, City FROM Customers;