Access 2013 Bible

Chapter 9: Using Operators and Expressions in Access

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding operators in expressions

Creating complex queries

Building queries with simple criteria

Using multiple criteria in a query

Composing complex query criteria

In the preceding chapter, you created queries using selected fields from one or more tables. You also sorted the data and set criteria to limit the results of a query. This chapter focuses on using operators and expressions to calculate information, compare values, and display data in a different format — using queries to build examples.

This chapter uses queries to demonstrate the use of operators and functions, but the principles in this chapter's exercises apply anywhere operators and expressions appear in Access.

On the Web

The starting database for this walkthrough, Chapter09.accdb, can be downloaded from this book's website.

Introducing Operators

Operators let you compare values, put text strings together, format data, and perform a wide variety of tasks. You use operators to instruct Access to perform a specific action against one or more operands. The combination of operators and operands is known as an expression.

Note

You'll see the term evaluate a lot in this chapter. When you present Access with a field, expression, variable, and so on, Access evaluates the item and (internally) represents the item as a value. It's very important to compose expressions in such a way that Access evaluates them as we expect. If Access incorrectly ...