Automating System Administration with Perl, 2nd Edition

Appendix D. The 15-Minute SQL Tutorial

Relational databases can be excellent tools for system administration. A relational database is accessed and administered using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements. As a result, it is a good idea for system administrators to learn at least the basics of SQL. The goal of this appendix is not to make you a full-time database programmer or even a real database administrator; that takes years of work and considerable expertise. However, we can look at enough SQL that you can begin to fake it. You may not be able to speak the language, but you’ll at least get the gist if someone speaks it at you, and you’ll know enough to go deeper into the subject if necessary. These basic building blocks are used extensively in Chapter 7, where we integrate SQL and Perl.

SQL is a command language for performing operations on relational databases and their component parts. Tables are the component parts you’ll deal with most often. Their column and row structure makes them look a great deal like spreadsheets, but the resemblance is only surface-level. Table elements are not used to represent relationships to other elements—that is, table elements don’t hold formulas, just data. Most SQL statements are devoted to working with the data in these rows and columns, allowing the user to add, delete, select, sort, and relate it between tables.

Let’s go over some of the operators offered by SQL. If you want to experiment with the operators we’ll be discussing, you’ll ...