Working with MySql Select

12.07.2021

Intro

The SELECT clause is the main entry to sql. The command allows us to query data from our SQL database. In this article, we will learn how to use MySql Select.

Getting Setup

We will be using docker in this article, but feel free to install your database locally instead. Once you have docker installed, create a new file called docker-compose.yml and add the following.

version: '3'
 
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:latest
    container_name: db
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root_pass
      MYSQL_DATABASE: app_db
      MYSQL_USER: db_user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: db_user_pass
    ports:
      - "6033:3306"
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
  phpmyadmin:
    image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
    container_name: pma
    links:
      - db
    environment:
      PMA_HOST: db
      PMA_PORT: 3306
      PMA_ARBITRARY: 1
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8081:80

volumes:
  dbdata:

Next, run docker-compose up.

Now, navigate to http://localhost:8081/ to access phpMyAdmin. Then log in with the username root and pass root_pass.

Click the SQL tab and you are ready to go.

Creating a DB

In this article, we will need some data to work with. If you don't understand these commands, don't worry, we will cover them in later articles.

We will be using the sample db provided here: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/sakila/en/. However, we will only enter what we need rather than import the whole db.

With the SQL tab open (or your own sql cli going), let's first create our DB and select it.

create DATABASE if not EXISTS sakila;

USE sakila;

Next, let's create an actor table.

CREATE TABLE actor (
  actor_id SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  first_name VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
  last_update TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY  (actor_id),
  KEY idx_actor_last_name (last_name)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;

And finally, let's enter a few rows.

INSERT INTO actor VALUES (1,'PENELOPE','GUINESS','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(2,'NICK','WAHLBERG','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(3,'ED','CHASE','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(4,'JENNIFER','DAVIS','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(5,'JOHNNY','LOLLOBRIGIDA','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(6,'BETTE','NICHOLSON','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(7,'GRACE','MOSTEL','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(8,'MATTHEW','JOHANSSON','2006-02-15 04:34:33')

The Basic SQL

The basic sql structure as the following pattern.

SELECT * FROM actor

And the result is as follows:

first_name last_name actor_id last_update
1 PENELOPE GUINESS 2006-02-15 04:34:33
2 NICK WAHLBERG 2006-02-15 04:34:33
3 ED CHASE 2006-02-15 04:34:33
4 JENNIFER DAVIS 2006-02-15 04:34:33
5 JOHNNY LOLLOBRIGIDA 2006-02-15 04:34:33
6 BETTE NICHOLSON 2006-02-15 04:34:33
7 GRACE MOSTEL 2006-02-15 04:34:33
8 MATTHEW JOHANSSON 2006-02-15 04:34:33

Here we say select all (*) from the actor table. This will return a table of actors with all columns. Depending on your SQL environment, the results my be limited to prevent loading too much data.

Choosing Columns

We don't always need all of the columns. We can save some resources by specifying the columns instead. Let's modify our select query to do the following.

SELECT first_name, last_name FROM actor

The result is as follows.

first_name last_name
PENELOPE GUINESS
NICK WAHLBERG
ED CHASE
JENNIFER DAVIS
JOHNNY LOLLOBRIGIDA
BETTE NICHOLSON
GRACE MOSTEL
MATTHEW JOHANSSON