You want to update the “status” column to ‘Shipped’ for all orders with an “order_date” before ‘2024-01-01’.
What’s the correct statement?
A UPDATE
B MODIFY
C CHANGE
D ALTER
E DATE TO
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct SQL statement is A. UPDATE.
In SQL, the UPDATE statement is used to modify the existing records in a table. It is specifically designed to change one or more columns of records that meet certain criteria. In this case, the goal is to update the “status” column for orders where the “order_date” is before ‘2024-01-01’.
Here is how the statement would look:
UPDATE orders
SET status = 'Shipped'
WHERE order_date < '2024-01-01';
Explanation:
- UPDATE: This keyword is used to update existing data in a table.
- orders: This is the table being updated.
- SET status = ‘Shipped’: This clause specifies the new value for the “status” column, which in this case is ‘Shipped’.
- WHERE order_date < ‘2024-01-01’: This condition ensures that only orders with an “order_date” before January 1, 2024, will have their status updated.
The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:
- B. MODIFY: In SQL, the MODIFY keyword is used for changing the structure of a table (such as changing the data type of a column), not for updating data.
- C. CHANGE: This is also not used for updating data in SQL; it is more commonly used in some database systems for altering column definitions, but not for modifying data.
- D. ALTER: The ALTER statement is used to change the structure of a table, such as adding, dropping, or modifying columns, not for modifying data.
- E. DATE TO: This is not a valid SQL command. SQL does not use the DATE TO syntax to update records.
Thus, the correct statement to update data in SQL is the UPDATE statement.