SQL (Structured Query Language) - WHERE Clause

The SQL WHERE clause is used to specify a condition while fetching the data from a single table or by joining with multiple tables. If the given condition is satisfied, then only it returns a specific value from the table. You should use the WHERE clause to filter the records and fetching only the necessary records.

The WHERE clause is not only used in the SELECT statement, but it is also used in the UPDATE, DELETE statement, etc., which we would examine in the subsequent chapters.

Syntax

The basic syntax of the SELECT statement with the WHERE clause is as shown below.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition]

You can specify a condition using the comparison or logical operators like >, <, =, LIKE, NOT, etc. The following examples would make this concept clear.

Example

Consider the CUSTOMERS table having the following records −

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

The following code is an example which would fetch the ID, Name and Salary fields from the CUSTOMERS table, where the salary is greater than 2000 −

SQL> SELECT ID, NAME, SALARY 
FROM CUSTOMERS
WHERE SALARY > 2000;

This would produce the following result −

+----+----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | SALARY   |
+----+----------+----------+
|  4 | Chaitali |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+----------+

The following query is an example, which would fetch the ID, Name and Salary fields from the CUSTOMERS table for a customer with the name Hardik.

Here, it is important to note that all the strings should be given inside single quotes (''). Whereas, numeric values should be given without any quote as in the above example.

SQL> SELECT ID, NAME, SALARY 
FROM CUSTOMERS
WHERE NAME = 'Hardik';

This would produce the following result −

+----+----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | SALARY   |
+----+----------+----------+
|  5 | Hardik   |  8500.00 |
+----+----------+----------+