To conditionally select data from a table, a WHERE clause can be added to the SELECT statement with the following syntax:

SELECT column FROM table WHERE column condition value

With the WHERE clause, these conditions can be used:

Note: In some versions of SQL the not equal operator <> can be written as !=

Example: Select Persons from a City

To select only the people that live in Sandnes, add a WHERE clause to the SELECT statement like this: 

The "Persons" Table:

The Result:

Using Quotes

Note that we have used single quotes around the conditional values in the examples. SQL uses single quotes around text values. Most database systems will also accept double quotes. Numeric values should not be enclosed in quotes.

For Text values:

This is correct:
SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName='Tove'

This is not correct:
SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName=Tove

For Numeric values:

This is correct:
SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE Year>1965

This is not correct:
SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE Year>'1965'

The LIKE Condition

The LIKE condition is used to specify a search for a pattern in a column.

The syntax is like this:

SELECT column FROM table WHERE column LIKE pattern

A "%" sign can be used to define wildcards (missing letters in the pattern) both before and after the pattern.

Example: Select Persons with a Name Pattern 

This SQL statement will return persons with a first name that start with an 'O'.

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName LIKE 'O%'

This SQL statement will return persons with a first name that end with an 'a'.

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName LIKE '%a'

This SQL statement will return persons with a first name that contains the pattern 'la'.

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName LIKE '%la%'

All the examples above will return the following result: