SQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Changes in the Second Edition

Although the ANSI standards committee released the current version of SQL in 2003, called SQL2003, this book has grown dynamically in a variety of new ways in response to request from our readers. In fact, when you compare the first and second editions of SQL in a Nutshell, you’ll see that the second edition is, in reality, an entirely new book. Here are more details about changes in the second edition:

New format

We’ve developed an entirely new format that reduces redundancy and increases coverage for the SQL2003 standard and each vendor’s implementation. Rather than use the expository style of the first edition, we’ve taken a keyword description style that breaks all the keywords and clauses into small, bite-sized entries.

New database platforms

We’ve added full coverage for IBM’s DB2 UDB database platform running on Unix, Linux, and Windows. In addition, we’ve added an appendix that describes Sybase’s implementation of the SQL commands, as they differ from Microsoft SQL Server’s implementation.

Database programming

We’ve added a chapter that covers the basics of how programmers can interface their frontend programs to the backend database platforms covered in this book.

More complete coverage

We’ve added many more examples and added SQL commands not covered in the first edition. In addition, we’ve added much more complete coverage for SQL functions — in particular, vendor-specific functions that are not part of the SQL2003 standard.

More examples

You can never have too many examples. We’ve added examples for the most basic uses of the commands under the SQL2003 headings, with even more examples that highlight the unique and powerful extensions offered by each database platform.