Book description
SQL is a standard interactive and programming language for querying and modifying data and managing databases. This task-based tutorial and reference guide takes the mystery out learning and applying SQL. After going over the relational database model and SQL syntax in the first few chapters, veteran author Chris Fehily immediately launches into the tasks that will get readers comfortable with SQL. In addition to covering all the SQL basics, this thoroughly updated reference contains a wealth of in-depth SQL knowledge and serves as an excellent reference for more experienced users.
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Special thanks to...
- i. Introduction
- 1. DBMS Specifics
- 2. The Relational Model
- 3. SQL Basics
-
4. Retrieving Data from a Table
- Retrieving Columns with SELECT and FROM
- Creating Column Aliases with AS
- Eliminating Duplicate Rows with DISTINCT
- Sorting Rows with ORDER BY
- Filtering Rows with WHERE
- Combining and Negating Conditions with AND, OR, and NOT
- Matching Patterns with LIKE
- Range Filtering with BETWEEN
- List Filtering with IN
- Testing for Nulls with IS NULL
-
5. Operators and Functions
- Creating Derived Columns
- Performing Arithmetic Operations
- Determining the Order of Evaluation
- Concatenating Strings with ||
- Extracting a Substring with SUBSTRING()
- Changing String Case with UPPER() and LOWER()
- Trimming Characters with TRIM()
- Finding the Length of a String with CHARACTER_LENGTH()
- Finding Substrings with POSITION()
- Performing Datetime and Interval Arithmetic
- Getting the Current Date and Time
- Getting User Information
- Converting Data Types with CAST()
- Evaluating Conditional Values with CASE
- Checking for Nulls with COALESCE()
- Comparing Expressions with NULLIF()
-
6. Summarizing and Grouping Data
- Using Aggregate Functions
- Creating Aggregate Expressions
- Finding a Minimum with MIN()
- Finding a Maximum with MAX()
- Calculating a Sum with SUM()
- Calculating an Average with AVG()
- Counting Rows with COUNT()
- Aggregating Distinct Values with DISTINCT
- Grouping Rows with GROUP BY
- Filtering Groups with HAVING
- 7. Joins
-
8. Subqueries
- Understanding Subqueries
- Subquery Syntax
- Subqueries vs. Joins
- Simple and Correlated Subqueries
- Qualifying Column Names in Subqueries
- Nulls in Subqueries
- Using Subqueries as Column Expressions
- Comparing a Subquery Value by Using a Comparison Operator
- Testing Set Membership with IN
- Comparing All Subquery Values with ALL
- Comparing Some Subquery Values with ANY
- Testing Existence with EXISTS
- Comparing Equivalent Queries
- 9. Set Operations
- 10. Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Rows
-
11. Creating, Altering, and Dropping Tables
- Creating Tables
- Understanding Constraints
- Creating a New Table with CREATE TABLE
- Forbidding Nulls with NOT NULL
- Specifying a Default Value with DEFAULT
- Specifying a Primary Key with PRIMARY KEY
- Specifying a Foreign Key with FOREIGN KEY
- Forcing Unique Values with UNIQUE
- Adding a Check Constraint with CHECK
- Creating a Temporary Table with CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE
- Creating a New Table from an Existing One with CREATE TABLE AS
- Altering a Table with ALTER TABLE
- Dropping a Table with DROP TABLE
- 12. Indexes
- 13. Views
- 14. Transactions
-
15. SQL Tricks
- Calculating Running Statistics
- Generating Sequences
- Finding Sequences, Runs, and Regions
- Limiting the Number of Rows Returned
- Assigning Ranks
- Calculating a Trimmed Mean
- Picking Random Rows
- Handling Duplicates
- Creating a Telephone List
- Retrieving Metadata
- Working with Dates
- Calculating a Median
- Finding Extreme Values
- Changing Running Statistics Midstream
- Pivoting Results
- Working with Hierarchies
Product information
- Title: SQL: Visual QuickStart Guide, Third Edition
- Author(s):
- Release date: June 2008
- Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
- ISBN: None
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