SQL Alias

You can give a table or a column another name by using an alias. This can be a good thing to do if you have very long or complex table names or column names.

An alias name could be anything, but usually it is short.

SQL Alias Syntax for Tables

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name
AS alias_name

SQL Alias Syntax for Columns

SELECT column_name AS alias_name
FROM table_name

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Alias Example

Assume we have a table called "Persons" and another table called "Product_Orders". We will give the table aliases of "p" and "po" respectively.

Now we want to list all the orders that "Ola Hansen" is responsible for.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT po.OrderID, p.LastName, p.FirstName
FROM Persons AS p,
Product_Orders AS po
WHERE p.LastName='Hansen' AND p.FirstName='Ola'

The same SELECT statement without aliases:

SELECT Product_Orders.OrderID, Persons.LastName, Persons.FirstName
FROM Persons,
Product_Orders
WHERE Persons.LastName='Hansen' AND Persons.FirstName='Ola'

As you'll see from the two SELECT statements above; aliases can make queries easier to both write and to read.