SQL in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Chapter 3. SQL Statement Command Reference

This chapter is the heart of the book. It consists of an alphabetical listing of SQL commands, with detailed explanations and examples. Each command and function is identified in Table 3-1 as being “supported,” “supported with variations,” “supported with limitations,” or “not supported,” for each of the four SQL dialects covered in this book: MySQL 5.1, Oracle Database 11g, PostgreSQL 8.2.1, and Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008. After a brief description of the SQL2003 standard, each vendor application is discussed briefly but thoroughly, with supporting examples. If a specific platform does not support a particular command, that fact will be noted in the table that heads the command, and that command will not be listed for that platform. Similarly, although this book is not a comprehensive review of the SQL2003 standard, each command has been validated against that standard.