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Reading the Data in a Table (Tutorial)

Use the SELECT statement to read the data in a table. The SELECT statement is one of the most important Transact-SQL statements, and there are many variations in the syntax. For this tutorial, you will work with five simple versions.

To read the data in a table

  1. Type and execute the following statements to read the data in the Products table.

    -- The basic syntax for reading data from a single table
    SELECT ProductID, ProductName, Price, ProductDescription
        FROM dbo.Products
    GO
    
  2. You can use an asterisk to select all the columns in the table. This is often used in ad hoc queries. You should provide the column list in you permanent code so that the statement will return the predicted columns, even if a new column is added to the table later.

    -- Returns all columns in the table
    -- Does not use the optional schema, dbo
    SELECT * FROM Products
    GO
    
  3. You can omit columns that you do not want to return. The columns will be returned in the order that they are listed.

    -- Returns only two of the columns from the table
    SELECT ProductName, Price
        FROM dbo.Products
    GO
    
  4. Use a WHERE clause to limit the rows that are returned to the user.

    -- Returns only two of the records in the table
    SELECT ProductID, ProductName, Price, ProductDescription
        FROM dbo.Products
        WHERE ProductID < 60
    GO
    
  5. You can work with the values in the columns as they are returned. The following example performs a mathematical operation on the Price column. Columns that have been changed in this way will not have a name unless you provide one by using the AS keyword.

    -- Returns ProductName and the Price including a 7% tax
    -- Provides the name CustomerPays for the calculated column
    SELECT ProductName, Price * 1.07 AS CustomerPays
        FROM dbo.Products
    GO
    

Functions That Are Useful in a SELECT Statement

For information about some functions that you can use to work with data in SELECT statements, see the following topics:

See Also

Reference