How to use DISTINCT in SQL

[DotNetUser]

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I am in search of someone who can help me in my SQL query. I am having problem with my DISTINCT. My query is as below:

SELECT DISTINCT(empId) FROM (SELECT empId FROM Employee WHERE Name LIKE 'R%')

But the above query gives me the message as "Incorrect syntax near ')". Can anyone help me figure out how to use DISTINCT in SQL?

[Reegan]

The SQL DISTINCT command retrieves only unique data entries depending on the column list you have specified after it. The SELECT statement provides us all the information from column(s) on a table. Situations may arise where you will be find a lot of duplicates in the result that you got. To remove all this duplicates, we need to use DISTINCT after SELECT keyword. The syntax is as follows:

SELECT DISTINCT col_name
FROM table1

[void]

You can even do the same thing as in here:

SELECT DISTINCT empId FROM Employee WHERE Name LIKE 'R%'

In other words, you don't need to add a sub-query in your SELECT statement. You can directly specify the condition in your query.