The MySQL WHERE Clause

    The MySQL WHERE Clause

The WHERE clause is used to filter records.

It is used to extract only those records that fulfill a specified condition.

WHERE Syntax

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE condition;

Note: The WHERE clause is not only used in SELECT statements, it is also used in UPDATE, DELETE, etc.!

Demo Database

Below is a selection from the “Employees” table in the sample database:

WHERE Clause Example

The following SQL statement selects all the Employees from “London”:

SELECT * FROM Employees
WHERE City = 'London';

Text Fields vs. Numeric Fields

SQL requires single quotes around text values (most database systems will also allow double quotes).

However, numeric fields should not be enclosed in quotes:

SELECT * FROM Employees
WHERE EmployeeID = 1;

Operators in The WHERE Clause

The following operators can be used in the WHERE clause: