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An ORDER BY clause in SQL specifies that a SQL SELECT statement returns a result set with the rows being sorted by the values of one or more columns. The sort criteria does not have to be included in the result set (restrictions apply for SELECT DISTINCT, GROUP BY, UNION [DISTINCT], EXCEPT [DISTINCT] and INTERSECT [DISTINCT].)
The ORDER BY clause identifies which columns to use to sort the resulting data, and in which direction to sort them (ascending or descending). Without an ORDER BY clause, the order of rows returned by an SQL query is undefined. The DISTINCT keyword [5] eliminates duplicate data. [6] The following example of a SELECT query returns a list of ...
Title Authors ----- ----- SQL Examples and Guide 4 The Joy of SQL 1 An Introduction to SQL 2 Pitfalls of SQL 1 Under the precondition that isbn is the only common column name of the two tables and that a column named title only exists in the Book table, one could re-write the query above in the following form:
An inner join (or join) requires each row in the two joined tables to have matching column values, and is a commonly used join operation in applications but should not be assumed to be the best choice in all situations. Inner join creates a new result table by combining column values of two tables (A and B) based upon the join-predicate.
Indexes are useful for many applications but come with some limitations. Consider the following SQL statement: SELECT first_name FROM people WHERE last_name = 'Smith';. To process this statement without an index the database software must look at the last_name column on every row in the table (this is known as a full table scan).
In SQL the UNION clause combines the results of two SQL queries into a single table of all matching rows. The two queries must result in the same number of columns and compatible data types in order to unite. Any duplicate records are automatically removed unless UNION ALL is used.
For example, you might have a table displaying names, dates, or numerical data. By making the table sortable, you allow readers to click on the column header to sort by, for example, alphabetical order (A–Z or Z–A) for names, chronological order for dates, or numerical order for numbers (low to high or high to low).
A common table expression, or CTE, (in SQL) is a temporary named result set, derived from a simple query and defined within the execution scope of a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement. CTEs can be thought of as alternatives to derived tables ( subquery ), views , and inline user-defined functions.