SELECT .. FROM:
SELECT is one of most commonly used DML(Data Manipulation Language) commands. It is
used to retrieve data from the database. The general form for a SELECT statement,
retrieving all of the rows in the table is:
SELECT ColumnName, ColumnName, ...
FROM TableName;
Lets us look at the following table (tbl_employee) including five fields:
Social_Security , Last_Name, First_Name, Address and Zip_Code:
Social_Security | Last_ Name | First_Name | Address | Zip_Code |
476-02-3475 | Mitchel | John | 1223 West Palm Beach Rd | 85023 |
376-76-9083 | Spencer | Teri | 2349 S. 76th Street #102 | 53219 |
733-05-3598 | James | Taylor | 23 N. Atlantic Blvd | 76215 |
387-41-1189 | Pewinsky | Lewis | 675 E Indian School Rd | 85023 |
498-32-9089 | James | Sue | 3567 E Tatum Blvd | 85032 |
If you want to retrive all the information in the table, use the following
statement:
SELECT * FROM tbl_employee
The result from the command is
Social_Security | Last_Name | First_Name | Address | Zip_Code |
476-02-3475 | Mitchel | John | 1223 West Palm Beach Rd | 85023 |
376-76-9083 | Spencer | Teri | 2349 S. 76th Street #102 | 53219 |
733-05-3598 | James | Taylor | 23 N. Atlantic Blvd | 76215 |
387-41-1189 | Pewinsky | Lewis | 675 E Indian School Rd | 85023 |
498-32-9089 | James | Sue | 3567 E Tatum Blvd | 85032 |
If you want to limit the number of fields from the table use the following command
SELECT First_Name, Last_Name, Zip_Code
FROM tbl_employee
The following is the results of your query of the database:
Last_Name | First_Name | Zip_Code |
Mitchel | John | 85023 |
Spencer | Teri | 53219 |
James | Taylor | 76215 |
Pewinsky | Lewis | 85023 |
James | Sue | 85032 |
To explain what you just did, you asked for the all of data in the table tbl_employee, and specifically, you asked for the fields called First Name, Last Name, Zip Coe. Note that column names and table names do not have spaces.