SQL Where Clause

The WHERE clause is used to extract only those records that fulfill a specified criterion.

SQL WHERE Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE column_name operator value

WHERE Clause Example

The "Persons" table:

Id	LastName	FirstName	Address	City
1	Navis	Anto	Madras	TVL
2	ji	Bala	Bombay	TVL
3	Christopher	Franklin	America	KK

Now we want to select only the persons living in the city "TVL" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE City='TVL'

The result-set will look like this:

Id	LastName	FirstName	Address	City
1	Navis	Anto	Madras	TVL
2	Ji	Bala	Bombay	TVL

Quotes Around Text Fields

SQL uses single quotes around text values (most database systems will also accept double quotes).

Although, numeric values should not be enclosed in quotes.

For text values:

This is correct: SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName='Bala' This is wrong: SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName=Bala

For numeric values:

This is correct: SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE Year=1965 This is wrong: SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE Year='1965'

Operators Allowed in the WHERE Clause

With the WHERE clause, the following operators can be used:

Operator	Description
=	Equal
<>	Not equal
>	Greater than
<	Less than
>=	Greater than or equal
<=	Less than or equal
BETWEEN	Between an inclusive range
LIKE	Search for a pattern
IN	If you know the exact value you want to return for at least one of the columns

Note: In some versions of SQL the <> operator may be written as !=