The SELECT Statement
As explained in Lesson 1, "Understanding SQL," SQL statements are made up of plain English terms. These terms are called keywords, and every SQL statement is made up of one or more keywords. The SQL statement that you'll probably use most frequently is the SELECT statement. Its purpose is to retrieve information from one or more tables.
Note
Keyword A reserved word that is part of the SQL language. Never name a table or column using a keyword. Appendix E, "SQL Reserved Words," lists some of the more common reserved words.
To use SELECT to retrieve table data you must, at minimum, specify two pieces of information—what you want to select, and from where you want to select it.
Note
Following Along with the Examples The sample SQL statements (and sample output) throughout the lessons in this book use a set of data files that are described in Appendix A, "Sample Table Scripts." If you'd like to follow along and try the examples yourself (I strongly recommend that you do so), refer to Appendix A. It contains sample scripts that you can use to create these data files, as well as for instructions about where you can go to download complete, populated, sample files.
It is important to understand that SQL is a language, not an application. The way that you specify SQL statements and display statement output varies from one application to the next. To assist you in adapting the examples to your own environment, Appendix B, "Working in Popular Applications," explains how to issue the statements taught throughout this book using many popular applications and development environments.