Where

Suppose you don't want all of the data for all of the rows in a table. Instead, perhaps you only want data for rows that match some criteria. For example, perhaps I want to see the data for the employees, but I only am interested in seeing the data for the employees who make over $45,000 per year.

Well, SQL provides the "where" clause for just these circumstances. The "where" clause allows you to specify conditions that a column cell must meet if it is to be considered a match and be returned in the results. In SQL syntax terminology, the WHERE clause is called the predicate.

The generic syntax of the WHERE clause looks something like the following:

    SELECT column_name
    FROM table_name
    WHERE where_clause;

Consider the following case in which we ask the database to return only the rows in the SALES table in which the Employee number is equal to "101"

     SELECT * 
     FROM SALES
     WHERE E_NUM = 101;     

In this case, the database would return the following:

---------------------------------------------
001	001	1	 99.99	101	102
003	002    	1	865.99	101	103
---------------------------------------------

The WHERE clause can be used in conjunction with various testing operators besides the "=" sign. Specifically, you can use the ">", "<", "<=", or ">=" operators to select ranges. Thus, to get a report of all the employees making more than 45,000 per year, you might use the following:

    SELECT *
    FROM EMPLOYEES
    WHERE EMP_SALARY > 45000;

If you are comparing a column of the CHARACTER data type, you can place the match string in single quotes ('').

For example, to find out Rick Tan's phone number from the CLIENTS table, you might use:

     SELECT C_PHONE, C_NAME
     FROM CLIENTS
     WHERE C_NAME = 'Rick Tan';

In this case, the database would return the following:

    C_PHONE		C_NAME
    ------------------------
    649-2038		Rick Tan
    ------------------------

Wildcards
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