MySQL SELECT Statement

The MySQL SELECT Statement

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

The data returned is stored in a result table, called the result-set.

SELECT Syntax

Here, column1, column2, ... are the field names of the table you want to select data from. If you want to select all the fields available in the table, use the following syntax:

Demo Database

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

Below is a selection from the "Customers" table in the Northwind sample database:

SELECT Columns Example

The following SQL statement selects the "CustomerName", "City", and "Country" columns from the "Customers" table:

SELECT CustomerName, City, Country FROM Customers;

SELECT * Example

The following SQL statement selects ALL the columns from the "Customers" table:

SELECT * FROM Customers;

The MySQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

The SELECT DISTINCT statement is used to return only distinct (different) values.

Inside a table, a column often contains many duplicate values; and sometimes you only want to list the different (distinct) values.

SELECT DISTINCT Syntax

SELECT Example Without DISTINCT

The following SQL statement selects all (including the duplicates) values from the "Country" column in the "Customers" table:

SELECT Country FROM Customers;

Now, let us use the SELECT DISTINCT statement and see the result.

SELECT DISTINCT Examples

The following SQL statement selects only the DISTINCT values from the "Country" column in the "Customers" table:

SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement counts and returns the number of different (distinct) countries in the "Customers" table:

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Country) FROM Customers;