SQL WHERE Clause 7

SQL Where Clause

The SQL WHERE Clause is used to restrict the number of rows (or records) returned by the Select Statement. It means the Select statement returns the records only If the condition specified after the SQL Where keyword is TRUE.

SQL Where Clause example : For instance, we want to order shoes on the Amazon website. When we type shoes in the search bar, it will show thousands of shoes with different brand names and sizes. However, to select the required shoe, we have to use filters such as price range between 2000 to 2500, color = black, and brand name = Nike or Adidas.

If we use the above filters, it will only display the shoes that are matching the above requirements so that we can select easily. Let us see what happens internally (Query against the Amazon Database). It uses SQL Where clause, and it will go something like this:

SELECT [Product Name], [Size], [Brand], [Price], [Discount]
FROM [Products_table]
WHERE ([Product Name] = 'Shoes') AND 
      (Brand = 'Nike' OR 'Adidas') AND 
      ([Price] BETWEEN 2000 AND 2500)

SQL WHERE Syntax

The Syntax of a SELECT Statement and SQL WHERE clause can be written as:

SELECT [Column Names]
FROM [Source]
WHERE [Conditions]

From the above SQL where syntax

  • Columns: It allows us to choose the number of columns from the tables. It may be one or more.
  • Source: One or more tables from the Database. JOINS are used to join multiple tables.
  • Conditions: Here, we have to provide filters or conditions. If the condition is TRUE, then only the SELECT Statement returns the records.

We use the below-shown data to explain the SQL Server WHERE Clause to filter the data before extracting it using the SELECT statement.

SQL WHERE Clause 1

SQL WHERE Single Condition

Using a single condition inside the SQL WHERE Clause.

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [Occupation] = 'Professional'

It will retrieve records mentioned above returns customers whose Occupation is exactly equal to Professional

SQL WHERE Clause 2

SQL Where Multiple Conditions Example

This Sql Server where example use Multiple Conditions in the WHERE Clause. The below query returns all the Customer records whose occupation is equal to either Professional or Management.

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [Occupation] = 'Professional' OR
 [Occupation] = 'Management'
SQL WHERE Clause 3

Where clause on General Expressions

Instead of testing conditions against Column Names, SQL allows us to test general conditions. For instance, below condition is checking 1 is exactly equal to 2, which is False. So SELECT statement will not return any record in SQL Server.

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE 1 = 2

Let us change the condition to (1 = 1). Here the condition is TRUE so it is displaying all the records present in the Customers Table

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE 1 = 1
SQL WHERE Clause 5

Do not use ALIAS Column Names in the WHERE Condition. Because the condition will execute first and then SELECT Statement will select the Columns. So, SQL WHERE Clause does not understand the ALIAS Columns declared in the SELECT Statement.

SQL Where Subquery

We can use Subqueries to check the column against the expression. Here, we use SQL where clause and subquery to display the records whose yearly income is greater than or equal to Average Income. Here, we used AVG to find the average of yearly income column.

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [YearlyIncome] >= (SELECT AVG([YearlyIncome]) 
			   FROM [Customer])
SQL WHERE Clause 6

SQL Where Order By Clause

We can also use SQL Where clause along with the Order By Clause. The Order By clause will sort those query result based on the income in descending order.

SELECT [EmpID]
      ,[FirstName]
      ,[LastName]
      ,[Education]
      ,[Occupation]
      ,[YearlyIncome]
      ,[Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [YearlyIncome] >= (SELECT AVG([YearlyIncome]) 
				FROM [Customer])
  ORDER BY [YearlyIncome] DESC
SQL WHERE Clause 7

SQL Where Update Example

This clause does not about restrict the records selected by the Select Statement. It is useful, in fact, mandatory to use this inside an Update Statement.

The below query add 132500 to Yearly income column, and multiply Sales by 2 for all the customers whose Occupation is either Management or professional

UPDATE [Customer]
	SET	[YearlyIncome] = [YearlyIncome] + 132500
      ,[Sales] = [Sales] * 2
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [Occupation] = 'Management' OR 
		[Occupation] = 'Professional'
Messages
--------
(9 row(s) affected)

Now, let us see the Customer table to check whether we successfully updated the records or not

SQL WHERE Clause 9

Where Delete Example

When we are deleting records, this will help us to restrict the number of records we want to delete. It is useful in Delete Statement. The below query delete all the customer records whose Occupation is Clerical

DELETE FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [Occupation] = 'Clerical'
GO

SELECT [EmpID], [FirstName], [LastName], [Education]
		,[Occupation], [YearlyIncome], [Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
SQL WHERE Clause 10

SQL Where Like Example

We can use Like Operator along with this to perform Wildcard searches against the Table. The below code writes all the records from the customer table whose Occupation ends with l. 

SELECT [EmpID], [FirstName], [LastName], [Education]
		,[Occupation], [YearlyIncome], [Sales]
  FROM [Customer]
  WHERE [Occupation] LIKE '%l'
SQL WHERE Clause 11