Introduction#

SELECT is used to retrieve rows selected from one or more tables.

Syntax#

• SELECT DISTINCT [expressions] FROM TableName [WHERE conditions]; ///Simple Select

• SELECT DISTINCT(a), b … is the same as SELECT DISTINCT a, b …

• SELECT [ ALL | DISTINCT | DISTINCTROW ] [ HIGH_PRIORITY ] [ STRAIGHT_JOIN ] [ SQL_SMALL_RESULT | SQL_BIG_RESULT ] [ SQL_BUFFER_RESULT ] [ SQL_CACHE | SQL_NO_CACHE ] [ SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS ] expressions

FROM tables [WHERE conditions] [GROUP BY expressions] [HAVING condition] [ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC ]] [LIMIT [offset_value] number_rows | LIMIT number_rows OFFSET offset_value] [PROCEDURE procedure_name] [INTO [ OUTFILE ‘file_name’ options | DUMPFILE ‘file_name’ | @variable1, @variable2, … @variable_n] [FOR UPDATE | LOCK IN SHARE MODE]; ///Full Select Syntax

Remarks#

For more information on MySQL’s SELECT statement, refer MySQL Docs.

SELECT by column name

CREATE TABLE stack(
    id INT,
    username VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    password VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO stack (`id`, `username`, `password`) VALUES (1, 'Foo', 'hiddenGem');
INSERT INTO stack (`id`, `username`, `password`) VALUES (2, 'Baa', 'verySecret');

Query

SELECT id FROM stack;

Result

+------+
| id   |
+------+
|    1 |
|    2 |
+------+

SELECT all columns (*)

Query

SELECT * FROM stack;

Result

+------+----------+----------+
| id   | username | password |
+------+----------+----------+
|    1 | admin    | admin    |
|    2 | stack    | stack    |
+------+----------+----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can select all columns from one table in a join by doing:

SELECT stack.* FROM stack JOIN Overflow ON stack.id = Overflow.id;

Best Practice Do not use * unless you are debugging or fetching the row(s) into associative arrays, otherwise schema changes (ADD/DROP/rearrange columns) can lead to nasty application errors. Also, if you give the list of columns you need in your result set, MySQL’s query planner often can optimize the query.

Pros:

1. When you add/remove columns, you don’t have to make changes where you did use SELECT *
2. It’s shorter to write
3. You also see the answers, so can SELECT *-usage ever be justified?

Cons:

1. You are returning more data than you need. Say you add a VARBINARY column that contains 200k per row. You only need this data in one place for a single record - using SELECT * you can end up returning 2MB per 10 rows that you don’t need
2. Explicit about what data is used
3. Specifying columns means you get an error when a column is removed
4. The query processor has to do some more work - figuring out what columns exist on the table (thanks @vinodadhikary)
5. You can find where a column is used more easily
6. You get all columns in joins if you use SELECT *
7. You can’t safely use ordinal referencing (though using ordinal references for columns is bad practice in itself)
8. In complex queries with TEXT fields, the query may be slowed down by less-optimal temp table processing

SELECT with WHERE

Query

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username = "admin" AND password = "admin";

Result

+------+----------+----------+
| id   | username | password |
+------+----------+----------+
|    1 | admin    | admin    |
+------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec) 

Query with a nested SELECT in the WHERE clause

The WHERE clause can contain any valid SELECT statement to write more complex queries. This is a ‘nested’ query

Query

Nested queries are usually used to return single atomic values from queries for comparisons.

SELECT title FROM books WHERE author_id = (SELECT id FROM authors WHERE last_name = 'Bar' AND first_name = 'Foo');

Selects all usernames with no email address

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username IN (SELECT username FROM signups WHERE email IS NULL);

Disclaimer: Consider using joins for performance improvements when comparing a whole result set.

SELECT with LIKE (%)

CREATE TABLE stack
(  id int AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   username VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL
);

INSERT stack(username) VALUES 
('admin'),('k admin'),('adm'),('a adm b'),('b XadmY c'), ('adm now'), ('not here'); 

“adm” anywhere:

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username LIKE "%adm%";  
+----+-----------+
| id | username  |
+----+-----------+
|  1 | admin     |
|  2 | k admin   |
|  3 | adm       |
|  4 | a adm b   |
|  5 | b XadmY c |
|  6 | adm now   |
+----+-----------+

Begins with “adm”:

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username LIKE "adm%";
+----+----------+
| id | username |
+----+----------+
|  1 | admin    |
|  3 | adm      |
|  6 | adm now  |
+----+----------+

Ends with “adm”:

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username LIKE "%adm"; 
+----+----------+
| id | username |
+----+----------+
|  3 | adm      |
+----+----------+

Just as the % character in a LIKE clause matches any number of characters, the _ character matches just one character. For example,

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE username LIKE "adm_n"; 
+----+----------+
| id | username |
+----+----------+
|  1 | admin    |
+----+----------+

Performance Notes If there is an index on username, then

• LIKE 'adm' performs the same as `= ‘adm’
• LIKE 'adm% is a “range”, similar to BETWEEN..AND.. It can make good use of an index on the column.
• LIKE '%adm' (or any variant with a leading wildcard) cannot use any index. Therefore it will be slow. On tables with many rows, it is likely to be so slow it is useless.
• RLIKE (REGEXP) tends to be slower than LIKE, but has more capabilities.
• While MySQL offers FULLTEXT indexing on many types of table and column, those FULLTEXT indexes are not used to fulfill queries using LIKE.

SELECT with Alias (AS)

SQL aliases are used to temporarily rename a table or a column. They are generally used to improve readability.

Query

SELECT username AS val FROM stack; 
SELECT username val FROM stack;

(Note: AS is syntactically optional.)

Result

+-------+
| val   |
+-------+
| admin |
| stack |
+-------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

SELECT with a LIMIT clause

Query:

 SELECT *
   FROM Customers
  ORDER BY CustomerID 
  LIMIT 3;

Result:

Best Practice Always use ORDER BY when using LIMIT; otherwise the rows you will get will be unpredictable.

Query:

 SELECT *
   FROM Customers
  ORDER BY CustomerID 
  LIMIT 2,1;

Explanation:

When a LIMIT clause contains two numbers, it is interpreted as LIMIT offset,count. So, in this example the query skips two records and returns one.

Result:

Note:

The values in LIMIT clauses must be constants; they may not be column values.

SELECT with DISTINCT

The DISTINCT clause after SELECT eliminates duplicate rows from the result set.

CREATE TABLE `car`
(   `car_id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, 
    `name` VARCHAR(20), 
    `price` DECIMAL(8,2)
);

INSERT INTO CAR (`car_id`, `name`, `price`) VALUES (1, 'Audi A1', '20000');
INSERT INTO CAR (`car_id`, `name`, `price`) VALUES (2, 'Audi A1', '15000');
INSERT INTO CAR (`car_id`, `name`, `price`) VALUES (3, 'Audi A2', '40000');
INSERT INTO CAR (`car_id`, `name`, `price`) VALUES (4, 'Audi A2', '40000');

SELECT DISTINCT `name`, `price` FROM CAR;
+---------+----------+
| name    | price    |
+---------+----------+
| Audi A1 | 20000.00 |
| Audi A1 | 15000.00 |
| Audi A2 | 40000.00 |
+---------+----------+

DISTINCT works across all columns to deliver the results, not individual columns. The latter is often a misconception of new SQL developers. In short, it is the distinctness at the row-level of the result set that matters, not distinctness at the column-level. To visualize this, look at “Audi A1” in the above result set.

For later versions of MySQL, DISTINCT has implications with its use alongside ORDER BY. The setting for ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY comes into play as seen in the following MySQL Manual Page entitled MySQL Handling of GROUP BY.

SELECT with LIKE(_)

A _ character in a LIKE clause pattern matches a single character.

Query

SELECT username FROM users WHERE users LIKE 'admin_';

Result

+----------+
| username |  
+----------+
| admin1   |
| admin2   |
| admin-   |
| adminA   |
+----------+

SELECT with CASE or IF

Query

SELECT st.name,
       st.percentage, 
       CASE WHEN st.percentage >= 35 THEN 'Pass' ELSE 'Fail' END AS `Remark` 
FROM student AS st ;

Result

+--------------------------------+
|   name   | percentage | Remark |
+--------------------------------+
|   Isha   |     67     |  Pass  |
|   Rucha  |     28     |  Fail  |
|   Het    |     35     |  Pass  |
|   Ansh   |     92     |  Pass  |
+--------------------------------+

Or with IF

SELECT st.name,
       st.percentage, 
       IF(st.percentage >= 35, 'Pass', 'Fail') AS `Remark` 
FROM student AS st ;

N.B

IF(st.percentage >= 35, 'Pass', 'Fail')

This means : IF st.percentage >= 35 is TRUE then return 'Pass' ELSE return 'Fail'

SELECT with BETWEEN

You can use BETWEEN clause to replace a combination of “greater than equal AND less than equal” conditions.

Data

+----+-----------+
| id | username  |
+----+-----------+
|  1 | admin     |
|  2 | root      |
|  3 | toor      |
|  4 | mysql     |
|  5 | thanks    |
|  6 | java      |
+----+-----------+

Query with operators

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE id >= 2 and id <= 5; 

Similar query with BETWEEN

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE id BETWEEN 2 and 5; 

Result

+----+-----------+
| id | username  |
+----+-----------+
|  2 | root      |
|  3 | toor      |
|  4 | mysql     |
|  5 | thanks    |
+----+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Note

BETWEEN uses >= and <=, not > and <.

Using NOT BETWEEN

If you want to use the negative you can use NOT. For example :

SELECT * FROM stack WHERE id NOT BETWEEN 2 and 5; 

Result

+----+-----------+
| id | username  |
+----+-----------+
|  1 | admin     |
|  6 | java      |
+----+-----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Note

NOT BETWEEN uses > and < and not >= and <= That is, WHERE id NOT BETWEEN 2 and 5 is the same as WHERE (id < 2 OR id > 5).

If you have an index on a column you use in a BETWEEN search, MySQL can use that index for a range scan.

SELECT with date range

SELECT ... WHERE dt >= '2017-02-01'
             AND dt  < '2017-02-01' + INTERVAL 1 MONTH

Sure, this could be done with BETWEEN and inclusion of 23:59:59. But, the pattern has this benefits:

• You don’t have pre-calculate the end date (which is often an exact length from the start)
• You don’t include both endpoints (as BETWEEN does), nor type ‘23:59:59’ to avoid it.
• It works for DATE, TIMESTAMP, DATETIME, and even the microsecond-included DATETIME(6).
• It takes care of leap days, end of year, etc.
• It is index-friendly (so is BETWEEN).