SQL Where

What is the WHERE clause in SQL?

The WHERE clause in SQL filters the rows returned by a SELECT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement based on certain conditions. The WHERE clause specifies a condition that each row must meet to be returned or affected by a query.

The basic syntax of a WHERE clause is:

SELECT column_name(s) 
FROM table_name 
WHERE condition;

Here, the condition is a boolean expression evaluated for each row in the table. If the expression evaluates to TRUE, the row is included in the result set; otherwise, it is excluded.

The condition can be a comparison between columns and values, a pattern match, or a combination of multiple conditions using logical operators such as AND and OR.

For example, the following query returns all columns and rows from the tv_show table where the GENRE column exactly matches ‘Thriller’.

SELECT * 
FROM SANDBOX.tv_show 
WHERE GENRE = 'Thriller';