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Retrieving all Columns from a Table

The basic statement for retrieving data from a table is SELECT. SELECT specifies which data you want to retrieve. The FROM clause in the SELECT statement specifies which table holds the data.

How It's Done

The DEPARTMENT table contains the following columns:

In order to list all information about each department, you need to access this table and select all columns. To do this, enter:

select *
       from department;

You can enter this statement all on one line or spanning several lines. You can use either lowercase or uppercase.

What does the asterisk (*) mean?

It means that you want to see all the columns in the table. You don't have to list the column names explicitly.

What does DEPARTMENT indicate?

It's the name of the table from which you want to access data.

Why is there a semicolon at the end of the statement?

SQL will not process an interactive statement until it encounters a semicolon.

What You See

The result looks like this:

                      OCF nn.n ONLINE IDMS NO ERRORS SELECT * FROM DEPARTMENT; *+ *+ DEPT_ID  DEPT_HEAD_ID  DIV_CODE  DEPT_NAME *+ -------  ------------  --------  --------- *+    1120          2004  D06       PURCHASING - SERVICE *+    4200          1003  D04       LEASING - NEW CARS *+    4900          2466  D09       MIS *+    2210          2010  D04       SALES - NEW CARS *+    3520          3769  D04       APPRAISAL NEW CARS *+    5000          2466  D09       CORPORATE ACCOUNTING *+    4500          3222  D09       HUMAN RESOURCES *+    4600          2096  D06       MAINTENANCE *+    2200          2180  D02       SALES - USED CARS *+    5100          2598  D06       BILLING *+    6200          2461  D09       CORPORATE ADMINISTRATION *+    3530          2209  D06       APPRAISAL - SERVICE *+    6000          1003  D09       LEGAL *+    3510          3082  D02       APPRAISAL - USED CARS *+    1100          2246  D02       PURCHASING - USED CARS *+ *+ 17 rows processed

Rows Are Not Ordered

There is no inherent order to the rows as they are stored in the database. The rows in your result, therefore, may be in a different order from those displayed here. The message specifying the number of rows returned may be worded differently and appear in a different position on your screen.