1

Writing Basic
SQL SELECT Statements

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to

do the following:
List the capabilities of SQL SELECT statements
Execute a basic SELECT statement
Differentiate between SQL statements and
iSQL*Plus commands

1-2 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Capabilities of SQL SELECT Statements

Projection Selection

Table 1 Table 1

Join

Table 1 Table 2

1-3 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Basic SELECT Statement

SELECT
SELECT *|{[DISTINCT]
*|{[DISTINCT] column|expression
column|expression [alias],...}
[alias],...}
FROM
FROM table;
table;

SELECT identifies what columns

FROM identifies which table

1-4 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Selecting All Columns

SELECT *
FROM departments;

1-5 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Selecting Specific Columns

SELECT department_id, location_id

FROM departments;

1-6 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Writing SQL Statements

SQL statements are not case sensitive.

SQL statements can be on one or more lines.
Keywords cannot be abbreviated or split
across lines.
Clauses are usually placed on separate lines.
Indents are used to enhance readability.

1-7 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Column Heading Defaults

iSQL*Plus:
Default heading justification: Center
Default heading display: Uppercase
SQL*Plus:
Character and Date column headings are left-
justified
Number column headings are right-justified
Default heading display: Uppercase

1-8 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Arithmetic Expressions

Create expressions with number and date data by

using arithmetic operators.

Operator Description

+ Add

- Subtract

* Multiply

/ Divide

1-9 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Using Arithmetic Operators

SELECT last_name, salary, salary + 300

FROM employees;

1-10 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Operator Precedence

_
* / +
Multiplication and division take priority over
addition and subtraction.
Operators of the same priority are evaluated from
left to right.
Parentheses are used to force prioritized
evaluation and to clarify statements.

1-11 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Operator Precedence

SELECT last_name, salary, 12*salary+100

FROM employees;

1-12 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Using Parentheses

SELECT last_name, salary, 12*(salary+100)

FROM employees;

1-13 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Defining a Null Value

A null is a value that is unavailable, unassigned,

unknown, or inapplicable.
A null is not the same as zero or a blank space.
SELECT last_name, job_id, salary, commission_pct
FROM employees;

1-14 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Null Values
in Arithmetic Expressions

Arithmetic expressions containing a null value

evaluate to null.
SELECT last_name, 12*salary*commission_pct
FROM employees;

1-15 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Defining a Column Alias

A column alias:
Renames a column heading
Is useful with calculations
Immediately follows the column name - there can
also be the optional AS keyword between the
column name and alias
Requires double quotation marks if it contains
spaces or special characters or is case sensitive

1-16 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Using Column Aliases

SELECT last_name AS name, commission_pct comm

FROM employees;

SELECT last_name "Name", salary*12 "Annual Salary"

FROM employees;

1-17 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Concatenation Operator

A concatenation operator:
Concatenates columns or character strings to
other columns
Is represented by two vertical bars (||)
Creates a resultant column that is a character
expression

1-18 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Using the Concatenation Operator

SELECT last_name||job_id AS "Employees"

FROM employees;

1-19 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Literal Character Strings

A literal is a character, a number, or a date included

in the SELECT list.
Date and character literal values must be enclosed
within single quotation marks.
Each character string is output once for each
row returned.

1-20 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Using Literal Character Strings

SELECT last_name ||' is a '||job_id

AS "Employee Details"
FROM employees;

1-21 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Duplicate Rows

The default display of queries is all rows, including

duplicate rows.
SELECT
SELECT department_id
department_id
FROM
FROM employees;
employees;

1-22 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Eliminating Duplicate Rows

Eliminate duplicate rows by using the DISTINCT

keyword in the SELECT clause.
SELECT DISTINCT department_id
FROM employees;

1-23 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 SQL and iSQL*Plus Interaction

SQL statements
iSQL*Plus
Oracle
Internet server
Browser

iSQL*Plus Query results

commands

Formatted report

Client

1-24 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 SQL Statements Versus
iSQL*Plus Commands
SQL iSQL*Plus
A language An environment
ANSI standard Oracle proprietary
Keyword cannot be Keywords can be
abbreviated abbreviated
Statements manipulate Commands do not allow
data and table definitions manipulation of values in
in the database the database
Runs on a browser
Centrally loaded, does not
have to be implemented
on each machine
SQL iSQL*Plus
statements commands

1-25 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Overview of iSQL*Plus

After you log into iSQL*Plus, you can:

Describe the table structure
Edit your SQL statement
Execute SQL from iSQL*Plus
Save SQL statements to files and append SQL
statements to files
Execute statements stored in saved files
Load commands from a text file into the iSQL*Plus
Edit window

1-26 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Logging In to iSQL*Plus

From your Windows browser environment:

1-27 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 The iSQL*Plus Environment
10 8 9

1 7

2 3 4 5

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 Displaying Table Structure

Use the iSQL*Plus DESCRIBE command to display

the structure of a table.

DESC[RIBE]
DESC[RIBE] tablename
tablename

1-29 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Displaying Table Structure

DESCRIBE
DESCRIBE employees
employees

1-30 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Interacting with Script Files

SELECT last_name, hire_date, salary

FROM employees; 1

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 Interacting with Script Files

D:\temp\emp_sql.htm

SELECT last_name, hire_date, salary 2

FROM employees;

1-32 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Interacting with Script Files

DESCRIBE employees
SELECT first_name, last_name, job_id 1
FROM employees;

3 2

1-33 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to:

Write a SELECT statement that:
Returns all rows and columns from a table
Returns specified columns from a table
Uses column aliases to give descriptive column
headings
Use the iSQL*Plus environment to write, save, and
execute SQL statements and iSQL*Plus commands.
SELECT
SELECT *|{[DISTINCT]
*|{[DISTINCT] column|expression
column|expression [alias],...}
[alias],...}
FROM
FROM table;
table;

1-34 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

 Practice 1 Overview

This practice covers the following topics:

Selecting all data from different tables
Describing the structure of tables
Performing arithmetic calculations and specifying
column names
Using iSQL*Plus

1-35 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.

1-40 Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved.