The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT statement is used to retrieve unique values from a column in a database table. It eliminates duplicate records and returns only distinct values.

Let's consider a sample database table called "Customers" with the following structure:

CustomerName	Address	City	PostalCode	Country
John Doe	123 Main St	New York	10001	USA
Jane Smith	456 Elm St	Los Angeles	90001	USA
Mark Johnson	789 Oak St	London	SW1A 1AA	UK

Now, let's see an example of using the SELECT DISTINCT statement:

Example: Selecting Distinct Countries

To select distinct countries from the "Customers" table, you can use the following query:

SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers;

This query retrieves only the unique values from the "Country" column of the "Customers" table, resulting in the following output:

Country
USA
UK

The SELECT DISTINCT statement allows you to identify and retrieve unique values from a specific column in a table. This can be helpful when analyzing data and eliminating duplicate records.