SQL Statement

Fundamentals
 SQL

● This section focuses on basic SQL syntax that you

will end up using in almost all your future queries.
● The syntax shown in this section is applicable to any
major SQL engine (e.g. MS SQL Server, MySQL,
Oracle, etc…)
 SQL

● In general we will focus on the syntax for

constructing a SQL query
○ Query : A request for information from the
database.
● After every major concept, we will have a
challenge task for you to complete.
● Let’s get started!
SELECT
 SQL

● SELECT is the most common statement used, and it

allows us to retrieve information from a table.
● Later on we will learn how to combine SELECT with
other statements to perform more complex queries.
 SQL

● Example syntax for SELECT statement:

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

Database
SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT column_name FROM table_name

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT c1 FROM table_1

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT c1, c2 FROM table_1

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT c1, c3 FROM table_1

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
SQL

SELECT * FROM table_1

Database

Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3 c1 c2 c3

x 23 a 1 Q 13 c 0 12

y 18 b 2 R 34 b 0 24

z 46 c 3 S 56 b 1 45
 SQL

● In general it is not good practice to use an asterisk (*)

in the SELECT statement if you don’t really need all
columns.
● It will automatically query everything, which
increases traffic between the database server and the
application, which can slow down the retrieval of
results.
 SQL

● If you only need certain columns, do your best to only

query for those columns.
● Let’s walk through some examples in our dvdrental
database to get some practice!
 SELECT
CHALLENGE TASKS
 SQL

● Challenge Structures
○ Business Situation
○ Challenge Question
○ Expected Answer
○ Hints
○ Solution
 SQL

● Challenge Structures
○ Business Situation
○ Challenge Question
○ Expected Answer
○ Hints
○ Solution
 SQL

● Situation
○ We want to send out a promotional email to our
existing customers!
 SQL

● Situation
○ We want to send out a promotional email to our
existing customers!
 SQL

● Challenge
○ Use a SELECT statement to grab the first and
last names of every customer and their email
address.
 SQL

● Expected Answer: (may not be displayed in the exact

same order)
 SQL

● Hints
○ Use the customer table
○ You can use the table drop-down to view what
columns are available
○ You could also use SELECT * FROM
customer to see all the columns.
 SQL

● Solution
○ Let’s check it out in pgadmin!
SELECT DISTINCT
 SQL

● Sometimes a table contains a column that has

duplicate values, and you may find yourself in a
situation where you only want to list the
unique/distinct values.
● The DISTINCT keyword can be used to return only
the distinct values in a column.
 SQL

● The DISTINCT keyword operates on a column. The

syntax looks like this:

SELECT DISTINCT column FROM table

 SQL

● To clarify which column DISTINCT is being applied

to, you can also use parenthesis for clarity:
SELECT DISTINCT(column) FROM table
 SQL

● It will work with or without parenthesis.

● Later on when we learn about adding more calls such
as COUNT and DISTINCT together, the parenthesis
will be necessary.
SELECT DISTINCT column FROM table
 SQL

● What does it actually mean to call DISTINCT on a

column?
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● Imagine a table of people who were surveyed to

choose a color:
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT DISTINCT name FROM color_table

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT DISTINCT name FROM color_table

Name

Zach

David

Claire
 SQL

● Given the previous example, we don’t really know if

the person with the name “David” was a duplicate
entry, or two different people with the same first
name.
● Calling DISTINCT here answered the question
○ What are the unique first names are there in the
table?
 SQL

● It makes more sense to ask “How many types of

unique color choices were there?”
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT DISTINCT choice

FROM color_table
Choice

Green

Yellow

Red
 SQL

● Let’s see a use case of when DISTINCT would be

useful.
SELECT DISTINCT
CHALLENGE
 SQL

● Situation
● SQL Challenge
● Expected Results
● Hints
● Solution
 SQL

● Situation
○ An Australian visitor isn’t familiar with MPAA
movie ratings (e.g. PG , PG-13, R, etc…)
○ We want to know the types of ratings we have in
our database.
○ What ratings do we have available?
 SQL

● SQL Challenge
○ Use what you’ve learned about SELECT
DISTINCT to retrieve the distinct rating types our
films could have in our database.
 SQL

● Expected Result
 SQL

● Hints
○ Use the film table
○ Use SELECT * FROM film; to see what columns
are available.
○ Or use drop down table menu in pgadmin.
 SQL

● Solution
○ SELECT DISTINCT rating FROM film;
COUNT
 SQL

● The COUNT function returns the number of input

rows that match a specific condition of a query.
● We can apply COUNT on a specific column or just
pass COUNT(*) , we will soon see this should return
the same result.
 SQL

● Let’s see a simple example

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(name) FROM table;

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(name) FROM table;

Count

4
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(name) FROM table;

● This is simply returning the number of rows in the
table.
● In fact, it should be the same regardless of the
column.
Count

4
 SQL

● Each column has the same number of rows

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(name) FROM table;

● SELECT COUNT(choice) FROM table;
● SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table;
● All return the same thing, since the original table had
4 rows.
Count

4
 SQL

● Because of this COUNT by itself simply returns back

a count of the number of rows in a table.
● COUNT is much more useful when combined with
other commands, such as DISTINCT
 SQL

● Imagine we wanted to know: How many unique

names are there in the table?
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name)

FROM table;
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name)

FROM table;
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name)

FROM table;
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name)

FROM table;
Count

3
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT name)

FROM table;
Count

3
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(name))
FROM table;
Count

3
 SQL

● Let’s explore some examples in pgAdmin!

SELECT WHERE
PART ONE
 SQL

● SELECT and WHERE are the most fundamental

SQL statements and you will find yourself using them
often!
● The WHERE statement allows us to specify
conditions on columns for the rows to be returned.
 SQL

● Basic syntax example:

○ SELECT column1, column2
FROM table
WHERE conditions;
 SQL

● The WHERE clause appears immediately after the

FROM clause of the SELECT statement.
● The conditions are used to filter the rows returned
from the SELECT statement.
● PostgreSQL provides a variety of standard operators
to construct the conditions
 SQL

● Comparison Operators
○ Compare a column value to something.
■ Is the price greater than $3.00?
■ Is the pet’s name equal to “Sam”?
 SQL
● Comparison Operators
Operator Description

= Equal

> Greater than

< Less Than

>= Greater than or equal to

<= Less than or equal to

<> or != Not equal to

 SQL

● Logical Operators
○ Allow us to combine multiple comparison
operators
■ AND
■ OR
■ NOT
 SQL

● Simple Syntax Example

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT name,choice FROM table

Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT name,choice FROM table

● Now let’s get only the people named David
Name Choice

Zach Green

David Green

Claire Yellow

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT name,choice FROM table

WHERE name = ‘David’
Name Choice

David Green

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT name FROM table

WHERE name = ‘David’
Name

David

David
 SQL

● SELECT name,choice FROM table

WHERE name = ‘David’
Name Choice

David Green

David Red
 SQL

● SELECT name,choice FROM table

WHERE name = ‘David’ AND choice= ‘Red’
Name Choice

David Red
SELECT WHERE
PART TWO
Code Along Examples
SELECT WHERE
Challenge Task
 SQL

● We now know enough to answer more realistic

business questions and tasks instead of directly asking
for specific SQL tasks.
● From now on we will focus more on directly asking
the business related questions, to more realistically
model a typical task.
 SQL

● For example:
○ How many customers have the first name Jared?
● Instead of:
○ Use SELECT WHERE to find “Jared” in the
first_name column in the customer table.
 SQL

● One last thing to keep in mind is that as we continue

to learn more about SQL, you will soon realize there
are usually many different ways to arrive at the same
solution
● Verify your work mainly against the expected result
instead of our SQL solution
 SQL

● Business Situation/Question
● Expected Result
● Hints
● Solution
 SQL

● Challenge No. 1
○ A customer forgot their wallet at our store! We
need to track down their email to inform them.
○ What is the email for the customer with the name
Nancy Thomas?
 SQL

● Expected Answer for Challenge No. 1

 SQL

● Hints for Challenge No. 1

○ Use the customer table
○ Make sure the capitalization and spelling of the
names is correct
○ Use AND to combine conditions
○ Use single quotes around the ‘string’
 SQL

● Solution for Challenge No. 1

○ SELECT email FROM customer
WHERE first_name = ‘Nancy’
AND last_name = ‘Thomas’;
 SQL

● Challenge No. 2
○ A customer wants to know what the movie
“Outlaw Hanky” is about.
○ Could you give them the description for the movie
“Outlaw Hanky”?
 SQL

● Expected Answer for Challenge No. 2

 SQL

● Hints for Challenge No. 2

○ Use the film table
○ Make sure the capitalization and spelling of the
movie name is correct
○ Use single quotes around the ‘string’
 SQL

● Solution for Challenge No. 2

○ SELECT description FROM film
WHERE title = ‘Outlaw Hanky’;
 SQL

● Challenge No. 3
○ A customer is late on their movie return, and we’ve
mailed them a letter to their address at ‘259 Ipoh
Drive’. We should also call them on the phone to
let them know.
○ Can you get the phone number for the customer
who lives at ‘259 Ipoh Drive’?
 SQL

● Expected Answer for Challenge No. 3

 SQL

● Hints for Challenge No. 3

○ Use the address table
○ Make sure the capitalization and spelling of the
address is correct
○ Use single quotes around the ‘string’
 SQL

● Solution for Challenge No. 3

○ SELECT phone FROM address
WHERE address= ‘259 Ipoh Drive’;
ORDER BY
 SQL

● You may have noticed PostgreSQL sometimes returns

the same request query results in a different order.
● You can use ORDER BY to sort rows based on a
column value, in either ascending or descending
order.
 SQL

● Basic syntax for ORDER BY

○ SELECT column_1,column_2
FROM table
ORDER BY column_1 ASC / DESC
 SQL

● Notice ORDER BY towards the end of a query, since

we want to do any selection and filtering first, before
finally sorting.
○ SELECT column_1,column_2
FROM table
ORDER BY column_1 ASC / DESC
 SQL

● Use ASC to sort in ascending order

● Use DESC to sort in descending order
● If you leave it blank, ORDER BY uses ASC by
default.
 SQL

● You can also ORDER BY multiple columns

● This makes sense when one column has duplicate
entries.
Company Name Sales

Apple Andrew 100

Google David 500

Apple Zach 300

Google Claire 200

Xerox Steven 100

 SQL

● SELECT company,name,sales FROM table

ORDER BY company,sales
Company Name Sales

Apple Andrew 100

Apple Zach 300

Google Claire 200

Google David 500

Xerox Steven 100

 SQL

● Let’s explore some examples in pgAdmin!

LIMIT
 SQL

● The LIMIT command allows us to limit the number of

rows returned for a query.
● Useful for not wanting to return every single row in a
table, but only view the top few rows to get an idea of
the table layout.
● LIMIT also becomes useful in combination with
ORDER BY
 SQL

● LIMIT goes at the very end of a query request and is

the last command to be executed.
● Let’s learn the basic syntax of LIMIT through some
examples.
ORDER BY
Challenge Tasks
 SQL

● Challenge Task / Business Situation

● Expected Result
● Hints
● Solution
 SQL

● Challenge Task
○ We want to reward our first 10 paying customers.
○ What are the customer ids of the first 10 customers
who created a payment?
 SQL

● Expected Result
 SQL

● Hints
○ Use the payment table
○ You will need to use both ORDER BY and LIMIT
○ Remember you may need to specify ASC or DESC
 SQL

● Solution
SELECT customer_id FROM payment
ORDER BY payment_date ASC
LIMIT 10;
 SQL

● Challenge Task
○ A customer wants to quickly rent a video to watch
over their short lunch break.
○ What are the titles of the 5 shortest (in length of
runtime) movies?
 SQL

● Expected Results
 SQL

● Hints
○ Use the film table
○ Take a look at the length column
○ You can use ORDER BY and LIMIT
○ Remember to use ASC or DESC to get desired
results
 SQL

● Example Solution
SELECT title,length FROM film
ORDER BY length ASC
LIMIT 5;
 SQL

● Quick Bonus Question

○ If the previous customer can watch any movie that
is 50 minutes or less in run time, how many
options does she have?
 SQL

● Expected Result
○ 37
 SQL

● SELECT COUNT(title) FROM film

WHERE length <= 50
BETWEEN
 SQL

● The BETWEEN operator can be used to match a

value against a range of values:
○ value BETWEEN low AND high
 SQL

● The BETWEEN operator is the same as:

○ value >= low AND value <= high
○ value BETWEEN low AND high
 SQL

● You can also combine BETWEEN with the NOT

logical operator:
○ value NOT BETWEEN low AND high
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● The NOT BETWEEN operator is the same as:

○ value < low OR value > high
○ value NOT BETWEEN low AND high
 SQL

● The BETWEEN operator can also be used with dates.

Note that you need to format dates in the ISO 8601
standard format, which is YYYY-MM-DD
○ date BETWEEN ‘2007-01-01’
AND ‘2007-02-01’
 SQL

● When using BETWEEN operator with dates that also

include timestamp information, pay careful attention
to using BETWEEN versus <=,>= comparison
operators, due to the fact that a datetime starts at 0:00.
● Later on we will study more specific methods for
datetime information types.
 SQL

● Let’s get some quick practice in pgAdmin!

IN
 SQL

● In certain cases you want to check for multiple

possible value options, for example, if a user’s name
shows up IN a list of known names.
● We can use the IN operator to create a condition that
checks to see if a value in included in a list of
multiple options.
 SQL

● The general syntax is:

○ value IN (option1,option2,...,option_n)
 SQL

● Example query:
○ SELECT color FROM table
WHERE color IN (‘red’,’blue’)
 SQL

● Example query:
○ SELECT color FROM table
WHERE color IN (‘red’,’blue’,’green’)
 SQL

● Example query:
○ SELECT color FROM table
WHERE color NOT IN (‘red’,’blue’)
 SQL

● Let’s see some examples in pgAdmin!

LIKE and ILIKE
Using Pattern Matching
 SQL

● We’ve already been able to perform direct

comparisons against strings, such as:
○ WHERE first_name= ‘John’
● But what if we want to match against a general
pattern in a string?
○ All emails ending in ‘@gmail.com’
○ All names that begin with an ‘A’
 SQL

● The LIKE operator allows us to perform pattern

matching against string data with the use of wildcard
characters:
○ Percent %
■ Matches any sequence of characters
○ Underscore _
■ Matches any single character
 SQL

● All names that begin with an ‘A’

○ WHERE name LIKE ‘A%’
● All names that end with an ‘a’
● WHERE name LIKE ‘%a’
Notice that LIKE is case-sensitive, we can use ILIKE
which is case-insensitive
 SQL

● Using the underscore allows us to replace just a single

character
○ Get all Mission Impossible films
○ WHERE title LIKE ‘Mission Impossible _’
 SQL

● You can use multiple underscores

● Imagine we had version string codes in the format
‘Version#A4’ , ‘Version#B7’, etc...
○ WHERE value LIKE ‘Version#__’
 SQL

● We can also combine pattern matching operators to

create more complex patterns
○ WHERE name LIKE ‘_her%’
■ Cheryl
■ Theresa
■ Sherri
 SQL

● We can also combine pattern matching operators to

create more complex patterns
○ WHERE name LIKE ‘_her%’
■ Cheryl
■ Theresa
■ Sherri
 SQL

● Here we just focus on LIKE and ILIKE for now, but

keep in mind PostgreSQL does support full regex
capabilities:
○ https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/functions-match
ing.html
 SQL

● Let’s check out some examples in PgAdmin!

SQL Statement
Fundamentals
GENERAL CHALLENGE
 SQL

● Time to test your skills!

● We’re going to set you up with a few situations and
your task is to figure out the SQL query to solve them.
● Note! You can also check out the supplemental
resource link for this lecture to view these tasks in a
simple document.
 SQL

● The online doc has the task and the expected result.
● This video will have:
○ The Task
○ The Expected Result
○ Hints
● The next video will work through the solutions.
 SQL

● Task No. 1