Introduction to DISTINCT keyword

The distinct keyword is used with SELECT statement to retrieve unique values from the table. Distinct removes all the duplicate records while retrieving records from any table in the database.

Syntax for DISTINCT Keyword

SELECT DISTINCT column-name FROM table-name;

Example using DISTINCT Keyword

Consider the following Emp table. As you can see in the table below, there is employee name, along with employee salary and age.

In the table below, multiple employees have the same salary, so we will be using DISTINCT keyword to list down distinct salary amount, that is currently being paid to the employees.

SELECT DISTINCT salary FROM Emp;

The above query will return only the unique salary from Emp table.