Table: Customers
| FirstName |
LastName |
Email |
DOB |
Phone |
| John |
Smith |
John.Smith@yahoo.com |
2/4/1968 |
626 222-2222 |
| Steven |
Goldfish |
goldfish@fishhere.net |
4/4/1974 |
323 455-4545 |
| Paula |
Brown |
pb@herowndomain.org |
5/24/1978 |
416 323-3232 |
| James |
Smith |
jim@supergig.co.uk |
20/10/1980 |
416 323-8888 |
If we want to select all customers from our database table, having last name 'Smith' we need to use the following SQL syntax:
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE LastName = 'Smith'
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The result of the SQL expression above will be the following:
| FirstName |
LastName |
Email |
DOB |
Phone |
| John |
Smith |
John.Smith@yahoo.com |
2/4/1968 |
626 222-2222 |
| James |
Smith |
jim@supergig.co.uk |
20/10/1980 |
416 323-8888 |
In this simple SQL query we used the "=" (Equal) operator in our WHERE criteria:
LastName = 'Smith'
But we can use any of the following comparison operators in conjunction with the SQL WHERE clause:
<> (Not Equal)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE LastName <> 'Smith'
|
> (Greater than)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE DOB > '1/1/1970'
|
>= (Greater or Equal)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE DOB >= '1/1/1970'
|
< (Less than)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE DOB < '1/1/1970'
|
<= (Less or Equal)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE DOB =< '1/1/1970'
|
LIKE (similar to)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE Phone LIKE '626%'
|
Note the LIKE syntax is different with the different RDBMS (SQL Server syntax used above). Check the SQL LIKE article for more details.
Between (Defines a range)
SELECT *
FROM Customers
WHERE DOB BETWEEN '1/1/1970' AND '1/1/1975'
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