Beginning SQL Server 2008 Express for Developers: From Novice to Professional

Chapter 10. Building a View

A view is a virtual table that, in itself, doesn't contain any data or information. All it contains is the query that the user defines when creating the view. A view is actually a named query against one or more tables. Views are used as a security measure of restricting users to certain columns or rows from an underlying base table, as a method of joining data from multiple tables and presenting it as if that data resided in one table, as a method of returning summary data instead of detailed data, and as a method of accessing the underlying data in a manner that provides the end user with a business layout. For example, you will see within this chapter a view that shows customer details along with enriched transaction ...