In SQL, the SELECT statement is used to retrieve or fetch data from a database table. It allows you to specify the columns you want to retrieve and apply filters or conditions to narrow down the result set.

Syntax of SELECT Statement

The basic syntax of a SELECT statement is as follows:

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE condition;

• SELECT: specifies the columns you want to retrieve from the table.
• FROM: specifies the table from which you want to fetch the data.
• WHERE: filters the result set based on a condition (optional).

Example SELECT Statement

Let’s consider a table called “employees” with columns “id”, “name”, and “salary”. We can write a SELECT statement to retrieve the names of all employees with a salary greater than 5000:

SELECT name
FROM employees
WHERE salary > 5000;

This query will return the names of all employees whose salary is greater than 5000.

Important Points to Note

• Multiple columns can be selected by separating them with commas.
• “*” can be used as a wildcard to select all columns from a table.
• Additional clauses such as ORDER BY, GROUP BY, and JOIN can be used to further modify the result set.

Conclusion

Fetching data from a database using the SELECT statement is an essential skill in SQL. By using the SELECT statement, you can retrieve specific columns and apply conditions to extract the desired information. Mastering the SELECT statement will help you efficiently retrieve data for your database applications.