MySQL Aliases

Aliases are used to give a table, or a column in a table, a temporary name.

Aliases are often used to make column names more readable.

An alias only exists for the duration of that query.

An alias is created with the AS keyword.

Alias Column Syntax

Alias Table Syntax

Demo Database

In this tutorial we will use the well-known Northwind sample database.

Below is a selection from the "Customers" table:

And a selection from the "Orders" table:

Alias for Columns Examples

The following SQL statement creates two aliases, one for the CustomerID column and one for the CustomerName column:

SELECT CustomerID AS ID, CustomerName AS Customer FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement creates two aliases, one for the CustomerName column and one for the ContactName column. Note: Single or double quotation marks are required if the alias name contains spaces:

SELECT CustomerName AS Customer, ContactName AS "Contact Person" FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement creates an alias named "Address" that combine four columns (Address, PostalCode, City and Country):

SELECT CustomerName, CONCAT_WS(', ', Address, PostalCode, City, Country) AS Address FROM Customers;

Alias for Tables Example

The following SQL statement selects all the orders from the customer with CustomerID=4 (Around the Horn). We use the "Customers" and "Orders" tables, and give them the table aliases of "c" and "o" respectively (Here we use aliases to make the SQL shorter):

SELECT o.OrderID, o.OrderDate, c.CustomerName FROM Customers AS c, Orders AS o WHERE c.CustomerName='Around the Horn' AND c.CustomerID=o.CustomerID;

The following SQL statement is the same as above, but without aliases:

SELECT Orders.OrderID, Orders.OrderDate, Customers.CustomerName FROM Customers, Orders WHERE Customers.CustomerName='Around the Horn' AND Customers.CustomerID=Orders.CustomerID;

Aliases can be useful when: