SELECT

Retrieve rows from the database.

Summary Syntax:

   [WITH common_table_expression]
       SELECT [ALL|DISTINCT] [TOP n [PERCENT] [WITH TIES]] select_list [INTO new_table ]
          [FROM table_source ]
             [WHERE search_condition ]
                [GROUP BY group_by_expression ]
                   [HAVING search_condition ]
                      [ORDER BY expression [ASC|DESC] ]


Key
   select_list    One or more Columns from a Table, View or Alias:
                  table.*, table.column1, table2.column3, view4.* ...

   table_source   Table_or_view
                  Table_or_view [AS] table_alias
                  rowset_function [AS] table_alias
                  user_defined_function [AS] table_alias
                  OPENXML XML clause
                  table_source [INNER JOIN] table_source
                  table_source {LEFT | RIGHT | FULL} [OUTER] JOIN table_source

In addition to the above the UNION, EXCEPT and INTERSECT operators can be used to combine multiple queries into a single set of results, each query_spec must return the same number of columns:

query_spec UNION [ALL] query_spec  [...n ] ;
query_spec EXCEPT query_spec  [...n ] ] ;
query_spec INTERSECT query_spec  [...n ] ] ;

Examples

Select everything:

USE MyDatabase ;
GO
SELECT *
FROM myschema.mytable
ORDER BY mycolumn ASC ;
GO

Select only a few columns:

SELECT mycolumn1, mycolumn2
FROM myschema.mytable;
GO

Select using an alias:

SELECT My_alias.*
FROM myschema.mytable my_alias;
GO

Select with an average:

SELECT mycolumn1, AVG(mycolumn3) AS 'Average Price'
FROM myschema.mytable
WHERE mycolumn3 > 750
GROUP BY mycolumn1
ORDER BY mycolumn1 ;
GO

Select positive and negative ratings and order the results By Average Rating:

SELECT widget_id, ((positive + 1.9208) / (positive + negative) - 
   1.96 * SQRT((positive * negative) / (positive + negative) + 0.9604) / 
   (positive + negative)) / (1 + 3.8416 / (positive + negative)) 
AS ci_lower_bound
FROM widgets
WHERE positive + negative > 0 
ORDER BY ci_lower_bound DESC;

“A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of” ~ Burt Bacharach

Related commands

INSERT
UPDATE
UNION