Lesson 5 Beginner Level
5 of 30 lessons

SELECT Statement

Learn how to use SELECT to retrieve data from database tables. The SELECT statement is the most fundamental SQL command for querying data.

What is SELECT?

The SELECT statement is used to query and retrieve data from one or more tables in a database. It’s the most commonly used SQL command and forms the foundation of data retrieval.

Syntax

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name;

To fetch all columns from a table, you can use the asterisk (*) symbol: 

SELECT * FROM employees;

Example

SELECT first_name, last_name
FROM employees;

This will return the first and last names of all employees in the employees table.

Practice Task

  • Write a query to select all columns from the departments table.
  • Write a query to retrieve only job_id and salary from the employees table.
  • What does SELECT * FROM dual; return?
Previous Lesson Next Lesson