Retrieving Rows

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You can use the selection capability of SQL to choose the rows that you want to retrieve from a table. You can specify various criteria to select the rows that you want to see.

You can restrict the number of rows that are retrieved from the database by using a WHERE clause in a SQL statement. By inserting a WHERE clause into a SQL statement, you can specify a condition that must be met, and only the rows that meet the condition are returned.

When using a WHERE clause:

The WHERE clause directly follows the FROM clause in the SQL statement syntax
The WHERE clause consists of the WHERE keyword and a condition or conditions.
The condition in a WHERE clause specifies a comparison of values that limits the rows that are returned by a query

Learn more about the WHERE clause

WHERE Clause Syntax

SELECT [DISTINCT] * | column [alias], ... FROM table
WHERE condition ;

condition :
column operator column|constant|value

The condition consists of three components:

Column name
Comparison operator
Element that can be another column name, constant, or list of values