Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET

Getting Data from a Database

The SELECT statement is the most commonly used statement when you're using SQL. This is what enables you to retrieve data from a relational database. Listing 4.2 illustrates the basic structure of the SELECT statement.

Listing 4.2. The Basic Structure of a SELECT Statement

SELECT select_list [ INTO new_table ] FROM table_source [ WHERE search_condition ] [ GROUP BY group_by_expression ] [ HAVING search_condition ] [ ORDER BY order_expression [ ASC | DESC ] ]

In its simplest form, a SELECT statement begins with the word SELECT. SELECT is followed by one or more fields from the database table, each field separated by a comma. Then there's the FROM clause, which specifies the source of the data being queried. It ends ...