Examples in Each Chapter

With our online SQL editor, you can edit the SQL statements, and click
on a button to view the result.

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers;
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Some of The Most Important SQL

Commands
 SELECT - extracts data from a database
 UPDATE - updates data in a database
 DELETE - deletes data from a database
 INSERT INTO - inserts new data into a database
 CREATE DATABASE - creates a new database
 ALTER DATABASE - modifies a database
 CREATE TABLE - creates a new table
 ALTER TABLE - modifies a table
 DROP TABLE - deletes a table
 CREATE INDEX - creates an index (search key)
 DROP INDEX - deletes an index

SELECT Column Example

The following SQL statement selects the "CustomerName" and "City"
columns from the "Customers" table:

Example
SELECT CustomerName, City FROM Customers;

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The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement
The SELECT DISTINCT statement is used to return only distinct
(different) values.

Inside a table, a column often contains many duplicate values; and

sometimes you only want to list the different (distinct) values.

SELECT DISTINCT Examples

The following SQL statement selects only the DISTINCT values from the
"Country" column in the "Customers" table:

Example
SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement lists the number of different (distinct)

customer countries:

Example
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Country) FROM Customers;

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The SQL WHERE Clause

The WHERE clause is used to filter records.

The WHERE clause is used to extract only those records that fulfill a
specified condition.

WHERE Clause Example

The following SQL statement selects all the customers from the country
"Mexico", in the "Customers" table:

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE Country='Mexico';

Operators in The WHERE Clause

The following operators can be used in the WHERE clause:

Operator Description

= Equal

> Greater than

< Less than

>= Greater than or equal

<= Less than or equal

<> Not equal. Note: In some versions of SQL this operator may be

=

BETWEEN Between a certain range

LIKE Search for a pattern

 IN To specify multiple possible values for a column

The SQL AND, OR and NOT Operators

The WHERE clause can be combined with AND, OR, and NOT operators.

The AND and OR operators are used to filter records based on more than
one condition:

 The AND operator displays a record if all the conditions separated

by AND are TRUE.
 The OR operator displays a record if any of the conditions
separated by OR is TRUE.

The NOT operator displays a record if the condition(s) is NOT TRUE.

AND Example
The following SQL statement selects all fields from "Customers" where
country is "Germany" AND city is "Berlin":

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE Country='Germany' AND City='Berlin';

OR Example
The following SQL statement selects all fields from "Customers" where
city is "Berlin" OR "München":

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City='Berlin' OR City='München';
NOT Example
The following SQL statement selects all fields from "Customers" where
country is NOT "Germany":

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE NOT Country='Germany';

Combining AND, OR and NOT

You can also combine the AND, OR and NOT operators.

The following SQL statement selects all fields from "Customers" where
country is "Germany" AND city must be "Berlin" OR "München" (use
parenthesis to form complex expressions):

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE Country='Germany' AND (City='Berlin' OR City='München');

The following SQL statement selects all fields from "Customers" where
country is NOT "Germany" and NOT "USA":

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE NOT Country='Germany' AND NOT Country='USA';

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The SQL ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set in ascending or
descending order.

The ORDER BY keyword sorts the records in ascending order by default.

To sort the records in descending order, use the DESC keyword.

ORDER BY Example
The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers"
table, sorted by the "Country" column:

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country;

ORDER BY DESC Example

The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers"
table, sorted DESCENDING by the "Country" column:

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country DESC;

ORDER BY Several Columns Example

The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers"
table, sorted by the "Country" and the "CustomerName" column. This
means that it orders by Country, but if some rows have the same
Country, it orders them by CustomerName:

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country, CustomerName;

ORDER BY Several Columns Example 2

The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers"
table, sorted ascending by the "Country" and descending by the
"CustomerName" column:

Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country ASC, CustomerName DESC;
The SQL INSERT INTO Statement
The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert new records in a table.

INSERT INTO Syntax

It is possible to write the INSERT INTO statement in two ways.

The first way specifies both the column names and the values to be
inserted:

INSERT INTO Example

The following SQL statement inserts a new record in the "Customers"
table:

Example
INSERT INTO Customers (CustomerName, ContactName, Address, City,
PostalCode, Country)
VALUES ('Cardinal', 'Tom B. Erichsen', 'Skagen
21', 'Stavanger', '4006', 'Norway');

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Insert Data Only in Specified Columns

It is also possible to only insert data in specific columns.

The following SQL statement will insert a new record, but only insert
data in the "CustomerName", "City", and "Country" columns
(CustomerID will be updated automatically):

Example
INSERT INTO Customers (CustomerName, City, Country)
VALUES ('Cardinal', 'Stavanger', 'Norway');

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SQL NULL Values
What is a NULL Value?
A field with a NULL value is a field with no value.

If a field in a table is optional, it is possible to insert a new record or

update a record without adding a value to this field. Then, the field will
be saved with a NULL value.

Note: A NULL value is different from a zero value or a field that contains
spaces. A field with a NULL value is one that has been left blank during
record creation!

The IS NULL Operator

The IS NULL operator is used to test for empty values (NULL values).

The following SQL lists all customers with a NULL value in the "Address"
field:

Example
SELECT CustomerName, ContactName, Address
FROM Customers
WHERE Address IS NULL;

The IS NOT NULL Operator

The IS NOT NULL operator is used to test for non-empty values (NOT
NULL values).

The following SQL lists all customers with a value in the "Address" field:

Example
SELECT CustomerName, ContactName, Address
FROM Customers
WHERE Address IS NOT NULL;
The SQL UPDATE Statement
The UPDATE statement is used to modify the existing records in a table.

UPDATE Table
The following SQL statement updates the first customer (CustomerID =
1) with a new contact person and a new city.

Example
UPDATE Customers
SET ContactName = 'Alfred Schmidt', City= 'Frankfurt'
WHERE CustomerID = 1;

UPDATE Multiple Records

It is the WHERE clause that determines how many records will be
updated.

The following SQL statement will update the contactname to "Juan" for
all records where country is "Mexico":

Example
UPDATE Customers
SET ContactName='Juan'
WHERE Country='Mexico';

Example
UPDATE Customers
SET ContactName='Juan';