The UPDATE Statement in SQL- Tutorial

The UPDATE Statement in SQL: Video Lesson

            This video lesson, titled “The UPDATE Statement,” shows you the basic structure of the UPDATE statement in SQL. This video lesson on the UPDATE Statement in SQL is from our complete Introductory SQL training, titled “Mastering Introductory SQL Made Easy v.1.0.”

The UPDATE Statement in SQL: Overview

            After you have data within the tables in your database, you will often need to update those records. SQL uses the UPDATE statement to update field data within specified records in a table. The core SQL of the UPDATE statement is shown below. Note that the “table_name” parameter is the name of the table that contains the records to update. The “field_name” parameter is the name of a field within the table. The “update_value” parameter is the value to which you want to update the associated “field_name.” The “existing_value” parameter is the existing value that you want to update.

UPDATE table_name

SET field_name=update_value, field_name1=update_value1, etc.

WHERE field_name=existing_value

            Note that the WHERE clause within this statement is VERY important! Without this clause, which specifies exactly which records within the table to update, you will update EVERY record within the table! Always be sure to double-check your WHERE clause before executing an UPDATE on table records.

The UPDATE Statement in SQL: Syntax Implementations

            The following hyperlinks will demonstrate how to implement the UPDATE statement within SQL for MySQL 5.7, SQL Server 2012, and Access 2013.

MySQL 5.7:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/update.html

SQL Server 2012:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177523.aspx

Access 2013:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff845036.aspx