Find information about the data

- [Instructor] Instead of just getting back records…that match our queries, we can use some other functions…and commands to change how the data is represented…and to find out more about the data itself.…First, let's take a look at ways of describing the data…by finding out how many records a response contains…and how long certain fields are.…I'll write a simple query here…to get the first name of everyone in our database.…Select first_name…from people.…

Alright,…but let's add…first_name here again and wrap it up with the…length function which will tell us how long…the information in a given field is…rather than the value of the field itself.…Here I can see Janice's name is six characters long.…Wanda is five, Laura is five and so on.…We can use that on some other fields too…if we wanted to explore a little bit.…It can be helpful to get a listing…of unique values in a field as well.…

We have a thousand rows here,…but I know there is many people…with the same first or last name.…Let's take a look at only pulling out the unique values,…