SQL Syntax OR SQL Command

Demo Database Tables

A database most often contains one or more tables. Each table is identified by a name (e.g. "Customers" or "Orders"). Tables contain records (rows) with data.

Here, we have taken a sample table called as "Books".

Sample "Books" Table

SQL Statements

Most of the actions you need to perform on a database are done with SQL statements.

SQL statements are dependent on text lines. We can place a single SQL statement on one or multiple text lines.

All the SQL statements start with any of the keywords like SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, ALTER, DROP, CREATE, USE, SHOW and all the statements end with a semicolon (;).

The following SQL statement selects all the records in the "Customers" table:

SELECT * FROM Books;

Keep in Mind That...

SQL is NOT case sensitive: select is the same as SELECT

All the examples given in this tutorial have been tested with MySQL server.

Semicolon after SQL Statements?

Some database systems require a semicolon at the end of each SQL statement.

Semicolon is the standard way to separate each SQL statement in database systems that allow more than one SQL statement to be executed in the same call to the server.

Some of The Most Important SQL Commands