SELECT DISTINCT

The SQL DISTINCT command is used with SELECT key word to retrieve only distinct or unique data.

In a table, there may be a chance to exist a duplicate value and sometimes we want to retrieve only unique values. In such scenarios, SQL SELECT DISTINCT statement is used.

Note: SQL SELECT UNIQUE and SQL SELECT DISTINCT statements are same.

Let’s see the syntax of select distinct statement.

SELECT DISTINCT column_name ,column_name  

FROM  table_name;

Let’s try to understand it by the table given below:

Here is a table of students from where we want to retrieve distinct information For example: distinct home-town.

SELECT DISTINCT home_town  

FROM students