Alias is basically renaming a table temporarily for a sql statement.

The rename is done only for a particular statement is temporory.

ex

The syntax of table alias is as follows

SELECT column1, column2....
FROM table_name AS alias_name
WHERE [condition];

The syntax of column alias is as follows

SELECT column_name AS alias_name FROM table_name WHERE [condition];

ex

take two table

 ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00

and

+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+
|OID  | DATE                | CUSTOMER_ID | AMOUNT |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+
| 102 | 2009-10-08 00:00:00 |           3 |   3000 |
| 100 | 2009-10-08 00:00:00 |           3 |   1500 |
| 101 | 2009-11-20 00:00:00 |           2 |   1560 |
| 103 | 2008-05-20 00:00:00 |           4 |   2060 |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+--------+

alias

SQL> SELECT C.ID, C.NAME, C.AGE, O.AMOUNT FROM CUSTOMERS AS C, ORDERS AS O WHERE C.ID = O.CUSTOMER_ID;

this show

+----+----------+-----+--------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | AMOUNT |
+----+----------+-----+--------+
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 |   3000 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 |   1500 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 |   1560 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 |   2060 |
+----+----------+-----+--------+

now for the column

SQL> SELECT ID AS CUSTOMER_ID, NAME AS CUSTOMER_NAME FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE SALARY IS NOT NULL;

now result is

+-------------+---------------+
| CUSTOMER_ID | CUSTOMER_NAME |
+-------------+---------------+
|           1 | Ramesh        |
|           2 | Khilan        |
|           3 | kaushik       |
|           4 | Chaitali      |
|           5 | Hardik        |
|           6 | Komal         |
|           7 | Muffy         |
+-------------+---------------+