SQLite SELECT statement
last modified July 6, 2020
This part of the SQLite tutorial covers SQLite's implementation of the
SELECT statement in detail.
SQLite retrieve all data
The following SQL statement is one of the most common ones. It is also one of the most expensive ones.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 1 Audi 52642 2 Mercedes 57127 3 Skoda 9000 4 Volvo 29000 5 Bentley 350000 6 Citroen 21000 7 Hummer 41400 8 Volkswagen 21600
Here we retrieve all data from the Cars table.
SQLite select specific columns
We can use the SELECT statement to retrieve specific columns.
The column names follow the SELECT word.
sqlite> SELECT Name, Price FROM Cars; Name Price ---------- ---------- Audi 52642 Mercedes 57127 Skoda 9000 Volvo 29000 Bentley 350000 Citroen 21000 Hummer 41400 Volkswagen 21600
We retrieve the Name and the Price columns. The column
names are separated by commas.
SQLite rename column names
We can rename the column names of the returned result set. For this, we use the
AS clause.
sqlite> SELECT Name, Price AS 'Price of car' FROM Cars; Name Price of car ---------- ------------ Audi 52642 Mercedes 57127 Skoda 9000 Volvo 29000 Bentley 350000 Citroen 21000 Hummer 41400 Volkswagen 21600
With the above SQL statement, we rename the Price column to
Price of car.
SQLite limit data output
As we mentioned above, retrieving all data is expensive when dealing with large
amounts of data. We can use the LIMIT clause to limit the data amount
returned by the statement.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars LIMIT 4; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 1 Audi 52642 2 Mercedes 57127 3 Skoda 9000 4 Volvo 29000
The LIMIT clause limits the number of rows returned to 4.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars LIMIT 2, 4; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 3 Skoda 9000 4 Volvo 29000 5 Bentley 350000 6 Citroen 21000
This statement selects four rows skipping the first two rows.
The OFFSET clause following LIMIT specifies how
many rows to skip at the beginning of the result set. This is an alternative
solution to the previous one.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars LIMIT 4 OFFSET 2; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 3 Skoda 9000 4 Volvo 29000 5 Bentley 350000 6 Citroen 21000
Here we select all data from max four rows, and we begin with the third row.
The OFFSET clause skips the first two rows.
SQLite order data
We use the ORDER BY clause to sort the returned data set.
The ORDER BY clause is followed by the column on which we do the sorting.
The ASC keyword sorts the data in ascending order, the
DESC in descending order.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars ORDER BY Price; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 3 Skoda 9000 6 Citroen 21000 8 Volkswagen 21600 4 Volvo 29000 7 Hummer 41400 1 Audi 52642 2 Mercedes 57127 5 Bentley 350000
The default sorting is in ascending order. The ASC clause can be omitted.
sqlite> SELECT Name, Price FROM Cars ORDER BY Price DESC; Name Price ---------- ---------- Bentley 350000 Mercedes 57127 Audi 52642 Hummer 41400 Volvo 29000 Volkswagen 21600 Citroen 21000 Skoda 9000
In the above SQL statement, we select Name and Price columns
from the Cars table and sort it by the Price of the cars
in descending order. So the most expensive cars come first.
SQLite order data by more columns
It is possible to order data by more than one column.
sqlite> INSERT INTO Cars(Name, Price) VALUES('Fiat', 9000);
sqlite> INSERT INTO Cars(Name, Price) VALUES('Tatra', 9000);
For this example, we add two additional cars with 9000 price.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars ORDER BY Price, Name DESC; Id Name Price ---------- ---------- ---------- 10 Tatra 9000 3 Skoda 9000 9 Fiat 9000 6 Citroen 21000 8 Volkswagen 21600 4 Volvo 29000 7 Hummer 41400 1 Audi 52642 2 Mercedes 57127 5 Bentley 350000
In the statement, we sort the data by two columns: price and name. The name is in descending order.
SQLite select specific rows with WHERE
The next set of examples uses the Orders table.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Orders; Id OrderPrice Customer ---------- ---------- ---------- 1 1200 Williamson 2 200 Robertson 3 40 Robertson 4 1640 Smith 5 100 Robertson 6 50 Williamson 7 150 Smith 8 250 Smith 9 840 Brown 10 440 Black 11 20 Brown
Here we see all the data from the Orders table.
Next, we want to select a specific row.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Id=6; Id OrderPrice Customer ---------- ---------- ---------- 6 50 Williamson
The above SQL statement selects a row that has Id 6.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Customer="Smith"; Id OrderPrice Customer ---------- ---------- ---------- 4 1640 Smith 7 150 Smith 8 250 Smith
The above SQL statement selects all orders from the Smith customer.
We can use the LIKE clause to look for a specific pattern in the data.
sqlite> SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Customer LIKE 'B%'; Id OrderPrice Customer ---------- ---------- ---------- 9 840 Brown 10 440 Black 11 20 Brown
This SQL statement selects all orders from customers whose names begin with letter B.
SQLite remove duplicate items
The DISTINCT clause is used to select only unique items
from the result set.
sqlite> SELECT Customer FROM Orders WHERE Customer LIKE 'B%'; Customer ---------- Brown Black Brown
This time we have selected customers whose names begin with B.
We can see that Brown appears twice. To remove duplicates, we use the
DISTINCT keyword.
sqlite> SELECT DISTINCT Customer FROM Orders WHERE Customer LIKE 'B%'; Customer ---------- Black Brown
This is the correct solution.
SQLite group data
The GROUP BY clause is used to combine database records with
identical values into a single record. It is often used with the
aggregate functions.
Say we wanted to find out the sum of each customers' orders.
sqlite> SELECT sum(OrderPrice) AS Total, Customer FROM Orders GROUP BY Customer; Total Customer ---------- ---------- 440 Black 860 Brown 340 Robertson 2040 Smith 1250 Williamson
The sum function returns the total sum of a numeric column.
The GROUP BY clause divides the total sum among the customers.
So we can see that Black has ordered items for 440 or Smith for 2040.
We cannot use the WHERE clause when aggregate functions are used.
We use the HAVING clause instead.
sqlite> SELECT sum(OrderPrice) AS Total, Customer FROM Orders
GROUP BY Customer HAVING sum(OrderPrice)>1000;
Total Customer
---------- ----------
2040 Smith
1250 Williamson
The above SQL statement selects customers whose total orders where greater than 1000 units.
In this part of the SQLite tutorial, we described the SQL SELECT
statement in more detail.