Inside Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008: T-SQL Querying

Conclusion

This chapter covered many subjects, all related to subqueries. I discussed scalar and list subqueries, self-contained and correlated subqueries, table expressions, and ranking calculations.

It’s important to make mental notes of the fundamental techniques that I point out here and throughout the book, such as generating copies using an auxiliary table of numbers, introducing a tiebreaker, finding points before gaps, returning the next or previous value, calculating a grouping factor, and so on. This builds your T-SQL vocabulary and enhances your skills. As you progress with this approach, you’ll see that it becomes easier and easier to identify fundamental elements in a problem. Having already resolved and polished key techniques separately ...