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Day 2 — Filtering rows with WHERE
Yesterday you chose columns. Today you choose rows — which is where SQL starts saving you real time.
The WHERE clause
WHERE goes after FROM and keeps only the rows that match your condition.
SELECT columns
FROM table
WHERE condition;
Comparison operators
=equal to<>not equal to (some databases also accept!=)><greater than, less than>=<=greater or equal, less or equal
Not equal
Text is in quotes, numbers are not
This is the single most common beginner error.
Wrong
Right
WHERE City = Noida — the database looks for a column called Noida and fails.
Right
WHERE City = 'Noida'Filtering on dates
Dates are written as text in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format and compare in the order you would expect.
Why this matters at work
Every MIS report you will ever build is a WHERE clause: this month, this region, this status. Get comfortable here and half of reporting is done.
Try these yourself
- Find all customers in Delhi.
- Find orders with an Amount below 30000.
- Find products that cost more than 5000.
- Find employees who are not in the Sales department.
- Find orders placed in April 2026 (OrderDate from 2026-04-01).
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