SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

In a table, some of the columns may contain duplicate values. This is not a problem, however, sometimes you will want to list only the different (distinct) values in a table.

The DISTINCT keyword can be used to return only distinct (different) values.

SQL SELECT DISTINCT Syntax

SELECT DISTINCT column_name(s)
FROM table_name




SELECT DISTINCT Example

The "Persons" table:

P_Id         LastName       FirstName         Address           City
1              Hansen                 Ola             Timoteivn 10     Sandnes
2              Svendson              Tove           Borgvn 23        Sandnes
3              Pettersen               Kari           Storgt 20          Stavanger
Now we want to select only the distinct values from the column named "City" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT DISTINCT City FROM Persons

The result-set will look like this:

City
Sandnes
Stavanger