Basic Uses of SELECT

            There are many clauses, and combinations thereof, that can be used with a SELECT statement to yield particular table query results.  They range from very basic, commonly-used options to very specialized and complex.  The following basic, optional clauses will be covered in this section: 


Clauses                   Definition

DISTINCT                Eliminates duplicate row data 
FROM                      Specifies what table(s) to retrieve data from 
WHERE                   Decides what data to show 
ORDER BY             Sorts data by specified order criteria 
LIMIT                        Reduces the amount of records received 







Example of SELECT statement with clauses: 


SELECT DISTINCT values_to_display FROM table_name WHERE expression ORDER BY how_to_sort LIMIT row_count; 


             The above syntax shows the correct order and usage of each of the above optional clauses.  This statement is specifically  selecting  distinct data rows  from a named table, where some expression defines what data to show and it is  ordered  by a sorting criteria, and the number of rows to be retrieved is  limited by some number.