MySQL and mSQL

Name

SELECT

Synopsis

SELECT [STRAIGHT_JOIN] [DISTINCT|ALL] value[, value2...]
[INTO OUTFILE 'filename' delimiters] FROM table[, table2...] [clause]

Retrieve data from a database. The SELECT statement is the primary method of reading data from database tables.

If you specify more than one table, MySQL will automatically join the tables so that you can compare values between the tables. In cases where MySQL does not perform the join in an efficient manner, you can specify STRAIGHT_JOIN to force MySQL to join the tables in the order you enter them in the query.

If the DISTINCT keyword is present, only one row of data will be output for every group of rows that is identical. The ALL keyword is the opposite of distinct and displays all returned data. The default behavior is ALL.

The returned values can be any one of the following:

Aliases

Any complex column name or function can be simplified by creating an alias for it. The value can be referred to by its alias anywhere else in the SELECT statement (e.g., SELECT DATE_FORMAT(date,"%W, %M %d %Y") as nice_date FROM calendar).

Column names

These can be specified as column, table.column or database.table.column. The longer forms are necessary only to disambiguate columns with the same name, but can be used at any time (e.g., SELECT name FROM people; SELECT mydata.people.name FROM people).

Functions

MySQL supports a wide range of built-in functions (see later). In addition, user defined functions can be added at any time using the CREATE FUNCTION ...