The previous chapters explained how to create tables, how to fill them with data, and how
to manipulate that data. Now we finally discuss how to retrieve the data out of the
database.
The process of retrieving or the command to retrieve data from a database is called a query. In SQL the SELECT command is used to
specify queries. The general syntax of the SELECT command is
SELECT select_list FROM table_expression [sort_specification]
The following sections describe the details of the select list, the table expression,
and the sort specification.
The simplest kind of query has the form
SELECT * FROM table1;
Assuming that there is a table called table1, this command
would retrieve all rows and all columns from table1. (The method
of retrieval depends on the client application. For example, the psql
program will display an ASCII-art table on the screen, while client libraries will offer
functions to retrieve individual rows and columns.) The select list specification * means all columns that the table expression happens to provide. A
select list can also select a subset of the available columns or make calculations using
the columns. For example, if table1 has columns named a, b, and c (and
perhaps others) you can make the following query:
SELECT a, b + c FROM table1;
(assuming that b and c are of a
numerical data type). See Section 4.3
for more details.
FROM table1 is a particularly simple kind of table expression:
it reads just one table. In general, table expressions can be complex constructs of base
tables, joins, and subqueries. But you can also omit the table expression entirely and use
the SELECT command as a calculator:
SELECT 3 * 4;
This is more useful if the expressions in the select list return varying results. For
example, you could call a function this way:
SELECT random();
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