In order to retrieve the desired data the user presents a set of criteria by a query.
The retrieved data may be stored in a file, printed, or viewed on the screen.
SQL is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standardized query language developed specifically to write database queries.
[clarification needed] Reports and queries are the two primary forms of the retrieved data from a database.
There are some overlaps between them, but queries generally select a relatively small portion of the database, while reports show larger amounts of data.