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SQL in a Nutshell
book

SQL in a Nutshell

by Kevin Kline
December 2000
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
224 pages
9h 52m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from SQL in a Nutshell

Chapter 1. SQL, Vendor Implementations, and Some History

In the 1970s, IBM developed a product called SEQUEL, or Structured English Query Language, which ultimately became SQL, the Structured Query Language.

IBM, along with other relational database vendors, wanted a standardized method for accessing and manipulating data in a relational database. Over the decades, many competing languages have allowed programmers and developers to access and manipulate data. However, few have been as easy to learn and as universally accepted as SQL. Programmers and developers now have the benefit of learning a language that, with minor adjustments, is applicable to a wide variety of database applications and products.

SQL in a Nutshell describes four implementations of the current SQL standard, SQL99 (also known as SQL3): Microsoft’s SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. For those migrating from implementations of the earlier SQL standard, this chapter describes the current SQL standard and the ways in which it differs from the earlier standard. This chapter also provides a bit of history of the standards evolution.

The Relational Database Model

Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMSs), such as SQL Server and Oracle, are the primary engines of information systems worldwide, particularly Internet/Intranet applications and distributed client/server computing systems.

An RDBMS is defined as a system whose users view data as a collection of tables related to each other through common ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1565927443