---
title: "11: Updating records | SurrealDB University"
description: "Follow along with interactive SurrealDB lessons featuring hands-on exercises, code examples, and step-by-step instructions."
url: https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-11
---

![Course content preview](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/town.D95IYf2V.avif)

[Back to Courses](https://surrealdb.com/learn)

Course chapters

[Welcome to the Tour of SurrealDB!](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour) [1: Connecting to a database](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-01) [2: Creating records](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-02) [3: Using the ONLY keyword](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-03) [4: Non-ASCII record IDs](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-04) [5: Parentheses, indexing, and accessing fields](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-05) [6: Deleting records](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-06) [7: Field order in objects](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-07) [8: Tips when selecting records](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-08) [9: Casting and aliases](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-09) [10: Affixes](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-10) [11: Updating records](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-11) [12: Linking records](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-12) [13: Viewing the database as a whole](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-13) [14: Schemafull and schemaless](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-14) [15: Viewing the schema](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-15) [16: Literal types and assertions](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-16) [17: INSERT and using JSON](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-17) [18: FOR loops](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-18) [19: Basic graph relations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-19) [20: Creating graph edges](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-20) [21: Querying graph relations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-21) [22: Graph relations at greater depth](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-22) [23: Adding and improving data](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-23) [24: Defining events](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-24) [25: Defining indexes](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-25) [26: Improving the schema](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-26) [27: Visualising graph paths](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-27) [28: Recursive queries: setup](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-28) [29: Recursive queries](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-29) [30: More on recursive queries](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-30) [31: AI vector search](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-31) [Done the tour!](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-32)

# 11: Updating records

A library all on its own isn't all that interesting, so let's create the town that holds it.

```
CREATE town:riverdale SET name = "Riverdale";
```

![Surrealist Icon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/fdfe2c20f5941d5e.D0guSOhZ.webp) Run Query

Response

```surql
[
  {
    id: town:riverdale,
    name: 'Riverdale'
  }
]
```

If we want, we can select both the library and town inside a single statement.

```
SELECT * FROM place, town;
```

![Surrealist Icon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/fdfe2c20f5941d5e.D0guSOhZ.webp) Run Query

Response

```surql
[
  {
    address: '2025 Statement Street, Riverdale',
    floors: 8,
    id: place:surreal_library,
    name: 'Surreal Library',
    place_type: 'library'
  },
  {
    id: town:riverdale,
    name: 'Riverdale'
  }
]
```

However, while these two records have turned up in the same query, they aren't actually connected to each other. It would be nice to link the two so that we could always access the library inside queries on the town. To do this, we can update the `town` record to add a link to the library.

[`UPDATE`](https://surrealdb.com/docs/reference/query-language/statements/update) is similar to `CREATE` in that it can be followed by `SET` to set values for the fields. And like a `SELECT` statement, an `UPDATE` for a table without a `WHERE` will update every record for the table. A `WHERE` clause isn't truly needed here because we only have one `town`, but let's add it to make it clear. Also, this will guarantee that only the town of "Riverdale" gets updated even if we add more `town` records later.

To practice, we will first update Riverdale to give it a population of 75000.

```
UPDATE town  SET population = 75000WHERE name = "Riverdale";
```

![Surrealist Icon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/fdfe2c20f5941d5e.D0guSOhZ.webp) Run Query

Response

```surql
[
  {
    id: town:riverdale,
    name: 'Riverdale',
    population: 75000
  }
]
```

Now that we know how to update records, we can update this `town` again in the next page with a link.

Previous

10: Affixes

[Previous](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-10)

Next lesson

12: Linking records

[Next lesson](https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour/page-12)

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