How to put angle brackets around the data in a columns fields. Help!

Without linking the the challenge, I can't be sure this is the answer they are looking for, but this should work in a real world scenario.

To my knowledge Teamtreehouse is using a MySQL instance for its courses in SQL. In MySQL you can concatenate (or join together) strings by using the CONCAT() function. So in this case, you want to concatenate: < result >. Here is an example of this happening:

SELECT CONCAT('<', email, '>')
FROM TableName
WHERE 1=1

So line by line we are saying

/*
Select and concatenate the following: <, the email field, and >
Get those from a table named TableName
Make sure 1 is equal to 1 (this is just here to show you that you can use a where clause as well)
*/

In other SQL set ups, it is not uncommon for the + operator to be used for concatenation. Feel free to do more research on the differences between RDMSs when you have a firm grasp of the content in the courses here on Treehouse.

Let me know if this doesn't solve your challenge, or answer your questions!

reporting with SQL

Challenge Task 1 of 2

In the library database there's a patrons table listing all the users of the library. The columns are id, first_name, last_name, address, email, library_id and zip_code. Generate a list of strings that are in the following format: Andrew Chalkley andrew@teamtreehouse.com. Concatenate the first name, last name and email address for all users. Alias it to to_field. This will be used in the "To" field in email marketing.

the video doesnt make mention of angle brackets

I am also on the challenge outlined above by Andrew Horn about the angle brackets but the video made no mention of angle brackets so I am currently stuck and not sure how to proceed. Any help would be appreciated.

SELECT first_name || " " || last_name || " <" || email || ">" AS "to_field" FROM patrons;