SQL Where

The SQL WHERE keyword is used when you want to apply a conditional statement to your query. It can be used in conjunction with any SQL query.

SQL WHERE Syntax

SELECT “column_name(s)”
FROM “table_name”
WHERE “condition”

By adding the SQL WHERE keyword to a SQL query will only return results that match your condition.

SQL WHERE Example

To demonstrate the above example assume that we have the following table called Games

ID Title Release Date Genres Platform
1001 GTA IV April 29, 2008 Action-adventure PS3,XBOX360
1002 Gran Turismo 5 November 24, 2010 Racing PS3
1003 Assassin’s Creed November 14, 2007 Third person PS3,XBOX360
1004 Battlefield: Bad Company June 26, 2008 First person shooter PS3,XBOX360
1005 LittleBigPlanet October 01, 2008 Puzzle platformer PS3

To SELECT a specific record in the Games table we would use the following query:

SELECT *
FROM Games
WHERE ID=1002

Once executed the resultset would look like this:

ID Title Release Date Genres Platform
1002 Gran Turismo 5 November 24, 2010 Racing PS3

As the above example was using a numeric value there is no need to use quotes but if you wanted to perform a query where the SQL WHERE clause used a text value you would need to use quotes. Below is another example to highlight the difference.

SELECT *
FROM Games
WHERE Title=’LittleBigPlanet’

Once executed the resultset would look like this:

ID Title Release Date Genres Platform
1005 LittleBigPlanet October 01, 2008 Puzzle platformer PS3

Give it a go and once you feel comfortable using the SQL WHERE keyword move on to our next tutorial SQL ORDER BY.