The SQL WHERE clause is used to specify a condition while fetching the data from single table or joining with multiple tables.
If the given condition is satisfied then only it returns specific value from the table. You would use WHERE clause to filter the records and fetching only necessary records.
The WHERE clause is not only used in SELECT statement, but it is also used in UPDATE, DELETE statement, etc.,
Syntax:
SELECT column1, column2, columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition]
You can specify a condition using comparison or logical operators like >, <, =, LIKE, NOT, etc. Below examples would make this concept clear.
SELECT * FROM table_name;
Example:
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | venkatesh| 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 |
Following is an example which would fetch ID, Name and Salary fields from the CUSTOMERS table where 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 |
+----+----------+----------+
Following is an example, which would fetch ID, Name and Salary fields from the CUSTOMERS table for a customer with name Hardik.
Here, it is important to note that all the strings should be given inside single quotes ('') where as numeric values should be given without any quote as in 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 |
+----+----------+----------+