Syntax:
SELECT * TableName WHERE ColumnName= value;
Conditional Selection
To further discuss the SELECT statement, let's look at a new example table (for hypothetical purposes only):
|
EmployeeStatisticsTable |
| EmployeeIDNo |
Salary |
Benefits |
Position |
| 010 |
75000 |
15000 |
Manager |
| 105 |
65000 |
15000 |
Manager |
| 152 |
60000 |
15000 |
Manager |
| 215 |
60000 |
12500 |
Manager |
| 244 |
50000 |
12000 |
Staff |
| 300 |
45000 |
10000 |
Staff |
| 335 |
40000 |
10000 |
Staff |
| 400 |
32000 |
7500 |
Entry-Level |
| 441 |
28000 |
7500 |
Entry-Level |
Relational Operators
There are six Relational Operators in SQL, and after introducing them, we'll see how they're used:
| = |
Equal |
| <> or != (see manual) |
Not Equal |
| < |
Less Than |
| > |
Greater Than |
| <= |
Less Than or Equal To |
| >= |
Greater Than or Equal To |
The WHERE clause is used to specify that only certain rows of the table are displayed, based on the criteria described in that WHERE clause. It is most easily understood by looking at a couple of examples.
If you wanted to see the EMPLOYEEIDNO's of those making at or over $50,000, use the following:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE SALARY >= 50000;
Notice that the >= (greater than or equal to) sign is used, as we wanted to see those who made greater than $50,000, or equal to $50,000, listed together. This displays:
EMPLOYEEIDNO
------------
010
105
152
215
244
The WHERE description, SALARY >= 50000, is known as a condition (an operation which evaluates to True or False). The same can be done for text columns:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE POSITION = 'Manager';
This displays the ID Numbers of all Managers. Generally, with text columns, stick to equal to or not equal to, and make sure that any text that appears in the statement is surrounded by single quotes ('). Note: Position is now an illegal identifier because it is now an unused, but reserved, keyword in the SQL-92 standard.
More Complex Conditions: Compound Conditions / Logical Operators
The AND operator joins two or more conditions, and displays a row only if that row's data satisfies ALL conditions listed (i.e. all conditions hold true). For example, to display all staff making over $40,000, use:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE SALARY > 40000 AND POSITION = 'Staff';
The OR operator joins two or more conditions, but returns a row if ANY of the conditions listed hold true. To see all those who make less than $40,000 or have less than $10,000 in benefits, listed together, use the following query:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE SALARY < 40000 OR BENEFITS < 10000;
AND & OR can be combined, for example:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE POSITION = 'Manager' AND SALARY > 60000 OR BENEFITS > 12000;
First, SQL finds the rows where the salary is greater than $60,000 and the position column is equal to Manager, then taking this new list of rows, SQL then sees if any of these rows satisfies the previous AND condition or the condition that the Benefits column is greater than $12,000. Subsequently, SQL only displays this second new list of rows, keeping in mind that anyone with Benefits over $12,000 will be included as the OR operator includes a row if either resulting condition is True. Also note that the AND operation is done first.
To generalize this process, SQL performs the AND operation(s) to determine the rows where the AND operation(s) hold true (remember: all of the conditions are true), then these results are used to compare with the OR conditions, and only display those remaining rows where any of the conditions joined by the OR operator hold true (where a condition or result from an AND is paired with another condition or AND result to use to evaluate the OR, which evaluates to true if either value is true). Mathematically, SQL evaluates all of the conditions, then evaluates the AND "pairs", and then evaluates the OR's (where both operators evaluate left to right).
To look at an example, for a given row for which the DBMS is evaluating the SQL statement Where clause to determine whether to include the row in the query result (the whole Where clause evaluates to True), the DBMS has evaluated all of the conditions, and is ready to do the logical comparisons on this result:
True AND False OR True AND True OR False AND False
First simplify the AND pairs:
False OR True OR False
Now do the OR's, left to right:
True OR False
True
The result is True, and the row passes the query conditions. Be sure to see the next section on NOT's, and the order of logical operations. I hope that this section has helped you understand AND's or OR's, as it's a difficult subject to explain briefly.
To perform OR's before AND's, like if you wanted to see a list of employees making a large salary ($50,000) or have a large benefit package ($10,000), and that happen to be a manager, use parentheses:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE POSITION = 'Manager' AND (SALARY > 50000 OR BENEFITS > 10000);
IN & BETWEEN
An easier method of using compound conditions uses IN or BETWEEN. For example, if you wanted to list all managers and staff:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE POSITION IN ('Manager', 'Staff');
or to list those making greater than or equal to $30,000, but less than or equal to $50,000, use:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE SALARY BETWEEN 30000 AND 50000;
To list everyone not in this range, try:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEESTATISTICSTABLE
WHERE SALARY NOT BETWEEN 30000 AND 50000;
Similarly, NOT IN lists all rows excluded from the IN list.
Additionally, NOT's can be thrown in with AND's & OR's, except that NOT is a unary operator (evaluates one condition, reversing its value, whereas, AND's & OR's evaluate two conditions), and that all NOT's are performed before any AND's or OR's.
SQL Order of Logical Operations (each operates from left to right)
- NOT
- AND
- OR
Using LIKE
Look at the EmployeeStatisticsTable, and say you wanted to see all people whose last names started with "S"; try:
SELECT EMPLOYEEIDNO
FROM EMPLOYEEADDRESSTABLE
WHERE LASTNAME LIKE 'S%';
The percent sign (%) is used to represent any possible character (number, letter, or punctuation) or set of characters that might appear after the "S". To find those people with LastName's ending in "S", use '%S', or if you wanted the "S" in the middle of the word, try '%S%'. The '%' can be used for any characters in the same position relative to the given characters. NOT LIKE displays rows not fitting the given description. Other possibilities of using LIKE, or any of these discussed conditionals, are available, though it depends on what DBMS you are using; as usual, consult a manual or your system manager or administrator for the available features on your system, or just to make sure that what you are trying to do is available and allowed. This disclaimer holds for the features of SQL that will be discussed below. This section is just to give you an idea of the possibilities of queries that can be written in SQL.