SQL SELECT Statement

The SQL SELECT statement is used to retrieve data from the database tables. In this article we will show you, How to write SELECT statement in SQL Server 2014 with example.

SELECT Statement Syntax

The SELECT Statement in SQL Server can be written as:

• Columns: It allows us to choose the number of columns from the tables. It may be One or more.
• Source: One or more tables present in the Database. SQL JOINs are used to join multiple table.

We are going to use the below shown data to explain the SELECT Statement in SQL Server with example.

SQL SELECT Statement – Selecting All Columns

In this example, We are going to select all the Columns present in the customers table using asterisk (*). In SELECT statement * is the shortcut to represent all the available columns in the source tables.

T-SQL CODE

OUTPUT

Problems with SELECT *

• It will retrieve all the columns from the Table. Most of the times we don’t require all the column in a table.
• It will select the columns in default order. Some times we may need to change the columns order while displaying them.
• If there is any changes made in the underlying table (Reordering Columns, Removing or Adding Columns) will not reflect the Views created using SELECT *.

NOTE: Please don’t use SELECT * FROM statement in real-time even if you want to retrieve all the columns present in a table.

Second approach, Placing all the column names after the SELECT keyword. For instance, the above statement is written as:

T-SQL CODE

OUTPUT

SQL SELECT Statement – Selecting Few Columns

In real-time, selecting all the columns in a table is not the case because there will be some columns such as Bar codes, Rowguid, Photos etc. which are not required in the select. For this, SELECT statement allows us to select few or any specific columns from table or tables by placing the required Column Names followed by SELECT keyword.

T-SQL CODE

OUTPUT

NOTE: If you forget the comma between the columns then SQL Server assumes the second column as the Alias Column for the first column. So, Please be careful

SQL SELECT Statement – SQL Server Management Studio Intellisense

If you can access the SQL Server Management Studio then you can use the Intellisense to write the SELECT Statement for us. To do so First, Navigate to required Database and then select the required Table. Right Click on the Table will open the Context Menu with different options

From the above context menu, We have to select the Select Top 1000 Rows Option. This option will generate the SELECT Statement for us.

NOTE: If you want to see, all the records then remove SQL TOP Clause (Top 1000) from the above statement.

Points To Remember

• The SQL SELECT Statement return all the records present in the table. If you want to restrict the Rows then please use SQL WHERE Clause or TOP Clause.
• Please avoid using SELECT * for selecting all the columns names.
• Use SQL Joins to SELECT from Multiple Tables.

Thank You for Visiting Our Blog