To view a table in SQL, you can use the `SELECT` statement, which is fundamental for querying data. For example, if you want to retrieve all columns from a table named `employees`, you would execute the following command: `SELECT * FROM employees;`. This query fetches all rows and columns, but for more efficient data retrieval, especially with larger datasets, it’s advisable to specify the exact columns you need, using a syntax like `SELECT first_name, last_name FROM employees;`. Should you need to filter the results, incorporating a `WHERE` clause can be beneficial, allowing you to refine your query to match specific criteria. For instance, `SELECT * FROM employees WHERE department_id = 3;` will return only those employees that belong to department 3.

Additionally, SQL provides options like `ORDER BY`, `LIMIT`, and `JOIN` to manipulate the view further. If you wish to sort your results by last name in ascending order, you would append `ORDER BY last_name ASC` to your query. To restrict the number of results returned, you can use `LIMIT`, e.g., `SELECT * FROM employees LIMIT 10;` to fetch only the first 10 entries. If your data is spread across multiple tables, `JOIN` operations allow you to combine rows based on a related column; for example, `SELECT employees.first_name, departments.department_name FROM employees JOIN departments ON employees.department_id = departments.id;` will return a list of employees along with the names of their corresponding departments. This structured approach allows seasoned programmers to efficiently analyze and extract relevant information from databases.