Alternative to WHERE clause

[barkley1979]

Is there an alternative to using the WHERE clause in SQL?
I am a complete beginner - I am basically using
SELECT * FROM * WHERE <criteria>
and that is about it. I have been told that the WHERE clause could potentially kill the server but the person telling me this cannot tell me why/how.
What alternatives do I have?

 

[Cagliostro]

you don't have alternative

Ion Filipski

 

[barkley1979]

So can you inform me what I have to be careful of? How can I write bad WHERE clauses? I cannot understand how, if I am writing WHERE x=1 AND y Not In (&quot;Hello&quot;,&quot;GoodBye&quot this can cause a problem.

 

[grega]

You example does not cause a problem. If you are familiar with the layout of the database, and the appropriate tables have the appropriate indexes, and you have reasonable SQL skills, it is difficult to cause many problems. There are cases where you may write a query which produces a cartesion join (search google for more info) but I suggest that your friend is a bit of a scaremonger

Greg.

 

[barkley1979]

That's what I was hoping.
Thanks for the advice.