# SQL Aliases

« Previous
Next Chapter »

SQL aliases are used to temporarily rename a table or a column heading.

## SQL Aliases

SQL aliases are used to give a database table, or a column in a table, a temporary name.

Basically aliases are created to make column names more readable.

### SQL Alias Syntax for Columns

SELECT column_name AS alias_name
FROM table_name;

### SQL Alias Syntax for Tables

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name AS alias_name;

## Demo Database

In this tutorial we will use the well-known Northwind sample database.

Below is a selection from the "Customers" table:

CustomerID | CustomerName | ContactName | Address | City | PostalCode | Country
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
2 | Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados | Ana Trujillo | Avda. de la Constitución 2222 | México D.F. | 05021 | Mexico
3 | Antonio Moreno Taquería | Antonio Moreno | Mataderos 2312 | México D.F. | 05023 | Mexico
4 | Around the Horn | Thomas Hardy | 120 Hanover Sq. | London | WA1 1DP | UK

And a selection from the "Orders" table:

OrderID | CustomerID | EmployeeID | OrderDate | ShipperID
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
10354 | 58 | 8 | 1996-11-14 | 3
10355 | 4 | 6 | 1996-11-15 | 1
10356 | 86 | 6 | 1996-11-18 | 2

## Alias Example for Table Columns

The following SQL statement specifies two aliases, one for the CustomerName column and one for the ContactName column. Tip: It requires double quotation marks or square brackets if the column name contains spaces:

## Example

SELECT CustomerName AS Customer, ContactName AS [Contact Person]
FROM Customers;
Try it yourself »

In the following SQL statement we combine four columns (Address, City, PostalCode, and Country) and create an alias named "Address":

## Example

SELECT CustomerName, Address+', '+City+', '+PostalCode+', '+Country AS Address
FROM Customers;
Try it yourself »

Note: To get the SQL statement above to work in MySQL use the following:

SELECT CustomerName, CONCAT(Address,', ',City,', ',PostalCode,', ',Country) AS Address
FROM Customers;

## Alias Example for Tables

The following SQL statement selects all the orders from the customer with CustomerID=4 (Around the Horn). We use the "Customers" and "Orders" tables, and give them the table aliases of "c" and "o" respectively (Here we have used aliases to make the SQL shorter):

## Example

SELECT o.OrderID, o.OrderDate, c.CustomerName
FROM Customers AS c, Orders AS o
WHERE c.CustomerName="Around the Horn" AND c.CustomerID=o.CustomerID;
Try it yourself »

The same SQL statement without aliases:

## Example

SELECT Orders.OrderID, Orders.OrderDate, Customers.CustomerName
FROM Customers, Orders
WHERE Customers.CustomerName="Around the Horn" AND Customers.CustomerID=Orders.CustomerID;
Try it yourself »

Aliases can be useful when:

- There are more than one table involved in a query
- Functions are used in the query
- Column names are big or not very readable
- Two or more columns are combined together

« Previous
Next Chapter »

### WEB HOSTING

UK Reseller Hosting

### WEB BUILDING

FREE Website BUILDER Free HTML5 Templates

### W3SCHOOLS EXAMS

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, XML, and ASP Certifications

### SHARE THIS PAGE

### Color Picker

### HTML/CSS

HTML Tutorial HTML5 Tutorial CSS Tutorial CSS3 Tutorial Bootstrap Tutorial

### JavaScript

JavaScript Tutorial jQuery Tutorial jQuery Mobile Tutorial AngularJS Tutorial AJAX Tutorial JSON Tutorial

### Graphics

Canvas Tutorial SVG Tutorial Google Maps Tutorial

### Server Side

SQL Tutorial PHP Tutorial ASP Tutorial ASP.NET Tutorial VBScript Tutorial AppML Tutorial

### Web

Web Building Web Statistics Web Certification

### XML

XML Tutorial DTD Tutorial Schema Tutorial XML DOM Tutorial XPath Tutorial XSLT Tutorial XQuery Tutorial XSL-FO Tutorial RSS Tutorial WSDL Tutorial

### HTML/CSS

HTML Tag Reference HTML Event Reference HTML Color Reference CSS 1,2,3 Reference Bootstrap Reference

### JavaScript

JavaScript Reference HTML DOM Reference jQuery Reference jQuery Mobile Reference Google Maps Reference

### Server Side

PHP Reference SQL Reference ASP Reference VBScript Reference Razor Reference ASP.NET Reference

### XML

XML DOM Reference XSLT Reference XSL-FO Reference XPath Reference XQuery Reference Schema Reference RSS Reference SVG Reference

### HTML Charsets

HTML Character Sets HTML ASCII HTML ANSI HTML Windows-1252 HTML ISO-8859-1 HTML Symbols HTML UTF-8

### HTML/CSS

HTML Examples CSS Examples

### Browser Scripting

JavaScript Examples HTML DOM Examples jQuery Examples jQuery Mobile Examples AngularJS Examples AJAX Examples

### Server Scripting

PHP Examples ASP Examples VBScript Examples Razor Examples .NET Examples

### XML Languages

XML Examples DTD Examples XML DOM Examples XSL Examples XSLT Examples XPath Examples XQuery Examples Schema Examples RSS Examples SVG Examples