What is SELECT statement? How do I use it? The SELECT statement lets you select a set of values from a table in a database. The values selected from the database table would depend on the various conditions that are specified in the SQL query. Here are some ways to use the SELECT statement. I have listed the SQL statements and the respective results that you would obtain if you would execute those queries. SELECT lastname,firstname FROM people Would return a recordset with 3 records. Each record would have 2 values. The first record would have 2 values 'Pai' and 'Kiran'. Whereas the second record would have 2 values 'Hunter' and 'Jason'. SELECT * FROM people WHERE firstname='Jason' Would return a recordset with 1 record. The record would have 5 values in that, namely 'Hunter' , 'Jason' , '41' , 'Oak Street' and 'San Jose'. SELECT * FROM people WHERE age>25 Would return a recordset with 2 records. Note : That whenever you are comparing a varchar the value should be enclosed in single inverted commas ( ' ). Whereas when you compare an integer the value need not be enclosed in single inverted commas.
	How can I compare a part of the name rather than the entire name? SELECT * FROM people WHERE firstname LIKE '%an%' Would return a recordset with 2 records. This statement would return 2 records since the sequence 'an' occurs in 2 firstname values, 'Kiran' and 'Yashwant'.
	Can I use Boolean operators such as AND or OR to make complex queries? Good news!! Yes you can.. Actually as a matter of fact, once you start developing professional database applications you would almost always use such Boolean operators to make effective queries. SELECT address FROM people WHERE (firstname='Kiran' OR city='Nagpur') AND age>30 Would return a recordset consisting of 1 record with 1 value only. Since AND condition specifies that the firstname of the person could be 'Kiran' or his city could be 'Nagpur' , BUT that person has to be over the age of 30. The recordset would have only 1 value in it : 'Rajabhai Street'.
	What is the INSERT statement? How do I use it? The INSERT statement lets you insert information into a database. A few examples are shown below INSERT INTO people VALUES ('Bush', 'George', 47 , 'White House', 'Washington') Would insert a new row at the bottom of the table people consisting of the values in parentheses in the above statement. INSERT INTO people (lastname, city) VALUES ('Gates', 'Redmond') Would insert a new row at the bottom of the table people consisting of only 2 values as present in the above statement, namely 'Gates' and 'Redmond'. The remaining columns for that particular record would be left empty (null). Note : A null value is different from 0 or ''(Empty String). A perfect example of this would be a column describing the hair colour for many people. In case the person is bald then the value of the colour should be null rather than empty. This would be perfect from the database design view. A particular entity which doesn't exist should be represented similarly and not by empty Strings.