SQL UPDATE Statement
When you insert record to your table there are some cases that you need to modify the data. Or you may want to update it to the latest record.
The SQL update is there to help us modify the existing values of the table, the SQL update statement used the same column name as insert statement and the new value that you want to placed and the table name to update the data successfully.
The syntax of SQL update statement is as follows:
- UPDATE TABLE_NAME
- SET column1=value1, column2=value2,...
- WHERE COLUMN=VALUE
Consider the same table we had in previous tutorials.
Users:
Firstname | Lastname | Age | Maritalstatus | Country |
John | Smith | 40 | Married | Usa |
Mathew | Simon | 30 | Married | UK |
Bill | Steve | 20 | Single | Usa |
Amanda | Rogers | 28 | Married | Germany |
Steve | Hills | 30 | Single | france |
Tom | Jerry | 20 | Single | USA |
Bill | Josh | 30 | Married | UK |
Let’s say that john smith has migrated from USA to Australia then we want to update his country, then we write the SQL statement as:
UPDATE Users SET Country=”Australia” WHERE (Firstname=”John” AND Lastname=”Smith”)
The table will be updated and will change to:
Firstname | Lastname | Age | Maritalstatus | Country |
John | Smith | 40 | Married | Australia |
Mathew | Simon | 30 | Married | UK |
Bill | Steve | 20 | Single | Usa |
Amanda | Rogers | 28 | Married | Germany |
Steve | Hills | 30 | Single | france |
Tom | Jerry | 20 | Single | USA |
Bill | Josh | 30 | Married | UK |
Now consider multiple update, we want to change the age and marital status of Bill in the table.
NOTE: We have 2 persons named as Bill both will be updated.
UPDATE Users SET age=”50”, Maritalstatus=”Married” WHERE Firstname=”Bill”
The table is modified as follows:
Firstname | Lastname | Age | Maritalstatus | Country |
John | Smith | 40 | Married | Australia |
Mathew | Simon | 30 | Married | UK |
Bill | Steve | 50 | Married | Usa |
Amanda | Rogers | 28 | Married | Germany |
Steve | Hills | 30 | Single | france |
Tom | Jerry | 20 | Single | USA |
Bill | Josh | 50 | Married | UK |
So it is always a good idea to select rows with primary keys, or unique IDs to avoid unwanted data changes.
If we accidently or somehow forgot to type the where clause in the update query then all the data will be updated with the value you provide.
For example:
UPDATE Users SET Age=”10”
The result would be:
Firstname | Lastname | Age | Maritalstatus | Country |
John | Smith | 10 | Married | Australia |
Mathew | Simon | 10 | Married | UK |
Bill | Steve | 10 | Married | Usa |
Amanda | Rogers | 10 | Married | Germany |
Steve | Hills | 10 | Single | france |
Tom | Jerry | 10 | Single | USA |
Bill | Josh | 10 | Married | UK |
So make sure that you always use the where clause to avoid unnecessary lose of data.
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