SELECT Anything

As mentioned already, unlike PRINT, SELECT can be used to display more than one value. The values must be separated by commas. Here is an example:

SELECT N'Hourly Salary', 24.85

This would produce:

When you create a SELECT statement, what is on the right side of SELECT must be a value. Here is an example:

SELECT 226.75;

Based on this definition, instead of just being a value, the thing on the right side of SELECT must be able to produce a value. As we will see in the next sections, you can create algebraic operation on the right side of SELECT. Because we mentioned that the thing on the right side must produce a result, you can as well use another SELECT statement that it itself evaluates to a result. To distinguish the SELECT sections, the second one should be included in parentheses. Here is an example:

SELECT (SELECT 448.25);
GO

When one SELECT statement is created after another, the second is referred to as nested.

Just as you can nest one SELECT statement inside of another, you can also nest one statement in another statement that itself is nested. Here is an example:

SELECT (SELECT (SELECT 1350.75));
GO

In the above introductions, we used either PRINT or SELECT to display something in the query window. One of the characteristics of SELECT is that it can segment its result in different sections. SELECT represents each value in a section called a column. Each column is represented with a name also called a caption. By default, the caption displays as "(No column name)". If you want to use your own caption, on the right side of an expression, type the AS keyword followed by the desired caption. The item on the right side of the AS keyword must be considered as one word. Here is an example:

SELECT 24.85 AS HourlySalary;

This would produce:

You can also include the item on the right side of AS in single-quotes. Here is an example:

SELECT 24.85 AS N'HourlySalary';

If the item on the right side of AS is in different words, you should include it in single-quotes or put them in inside of an opening square bracket "[" and a closing square bracket "]". Here is an example:

SELECT 24.85 AS 'Hourly Salary';

If you create different sections, separated by a comma, you can follow each with AS and a caption. Here is an example:

SELECT N'James Knight' As FullName, 20.48 AS Salary;

This would produce:

The above statement could also be written as follows:

SELECT N'James Knight' As [Full Name], 20.48 AS [Hourly Salary];