WHERE clause in SQL

The WHERE clause in SQL is used to filter records that meet a specified condition. It is used to extract only those records that fulfill a given criterion. WHERE clause is generally used in SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE statement etc.

The following are some conditional operators which can be used in the WHERE clause:

Operator	Description
=	equal
>	greater than
<	less than
>=	greater than or equal
<=	less than or equal
<> or !=	not equal to
BETWEEN	Between an inclusive range
LIKE	Search for a pattern
IN	To specify multiple possible values for a column

Example: Let’s create an employees table.

SQL

CREATE TABLE Employees (
   EmployeeID INT,
    Name VARCHAR(20),
    Age int,
    Salary VARCHAR(10),
    Department VARCHAR(25),
    Gender VARCHAR(1)
);

Load the data into the Employees table.

SQL

insert into Employees values
(1, ‘Ashish’, 24, ‘25000’, ‘Electrical’, ‘M’), 
(2, ‘Kirshan’, 32, ‘30000’, ‘Electrical’, ‘M’),
(3, ‘Anjali’, 20, ‘25000’, ‘Electronics’, ‘F’),
(4, ‘Manjulika’, 30, ‘15000’, ‘Electrical’, ‘F’),
(5, ‘Katrina’, 37, ‘18000’, ‘Computer’, ‘F’),
(6, ‘Esha’, 37, ‘20000’, ‘Computer’, ‘F’),
(7, ‘Ankita’, 20, ‘9000’, ‘Electronics’, ‘M’), 
(8, ‘Meenakshi’, 30, ‘15000’, ‘Computer’, ‘F’),
(9, ‘Alia’, 37, ‘16000’, ‘Electronics’, ‘F’);

By executing the following query we can see the data in the table:

SQL

SELECT * FROM Employees;

The above query returned the following result:

Table: Employees

EmployeeID	Name	Age	Salary	Department	Gender
1	Ashish	24	25000	Electrical	M
2	Kirshan	32	30000	Electrical	M
3	Anjali	20	25000	Electronics	F
4	Manjulika	30	15000	Electrical	F
5	Katrina	37	18000	Computer	F
6	Esha	37	20000	Computer	F
7	Ankita	20	9000	Electronics	M
8	Meenakshi	30	15000	Computer	F
9	Alia	37	16000	Electronics	F

Basic WHERE Clause Select employees with a salary greater than 20,000.

SQL

SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE Salary > 20000;

The result of the above query is shown below:

EmployeeID	Name	Age	Salary	Department	Gender
1	Ashish	24	25000	Electrical	M
2	Kirshan	32	30000	Electrical	M
3	Anjali	20	25000	Electronics	F

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