SQL Select

In this tutorial you will learn how to select records from database tables using SQL.

## Selecting Data from Table
In the previous chapter we've learned how to insert data in a database table. Now it's time to select the data from existing tables using the SQL query.

The `SELECT` statement is used to select or retrieve the data from one or more tables. You can use this statement to retrieve all the rows from a table in one go, as well as to retrieve only those rows that satisfy a certain condition or a combination of conditions.

## Syntax
The basic syntax for selecting the data from a table can be given with:

```sql
SELECT column1_name, column2_name, columnN_name FROM table_name;
```
Here, column1_name, column2_name, ... are the names of the columns or fields of a database table whose values you want to fetch. However, if you want to fetch the values of all the columns available in a table, you can just use the following syntax:

```sql
SELECT * FROM table_name;
```
Let's put these statements into real use. Suppose we've a table named employees in our database that contains the following records:

```
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+---------+
| emp_id | emp_name     | hire_date  | salary | dept_id |
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+---------+
|      1 | Ethan Hunt   | 2001-05-01 |   5000 |       4 |
|      2 | Tony Montana | 2002-07-15 |   6500 |       1 |
|      3 | Sarah Connor | 2005-10-18 |   8000 |       5 |
|      4 | Rick Deckard | 2007-01-03 |   7200 |       3 |
|      5 | Martin Blank | 2008-06-24 |   5600 |    NULL |
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+---------+
```

### Select All from Table
The following statement will return all the rows from the employees table.

```sql
SELECT * FROM employees;
```
After execution, the output will look something like this:

As you can see, it returns all the rows and columns from the employees table.

<div class="callout callout-info mb-3">Tip: The asterisk (*) is a wildcard character that means everything. For example, the asterisk character in the SELECT statement of the example above is a shorthand substitute for all the columns of the employees table.</div>

### Select Columns from Table
If you don't require all the data, you can select specific columns, like this:

```sql
SELECT emp_id, emp_name, hire_date, salary
FROM employees;
```
After executing the above statement, you'll get the output something like this:

```
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+
| emp_id | emp_name     | hire_date  | salary |
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+
|      1 | Ethan Hunt   | 1995-10-30 |   5000 |
|      2 | Tony Montana | 1990-07-15 |   6500 |
|      3 | Sarah Connor | 2011-04-13 |   5600 |
|      4 | Rick Deckard | 2005-10-18 |   7200 |
|      5 | Martin Blank | 1996-05-24 |   8000 |
+--------+--------------+------------+--------+
```
As you can see this time there is no dept_id column in the result set. In the next chapter we'll learn how to select the records from a table based on a condition.