By Ryan K. Stephens, Ronald R. Plew, Bryan Morgan and Jeff Perkins
Late one Friday afternoon your boss comes into your undersized cubicle and drops a new project on your desk. This project looks just like the others you have been working on except it includes ties to several databases. Recently your company decided to move away from homegrown, flat-file data and is now using a relational database. You have seen terms like SQL, tables, records, queries, and RDBMS, but you don't remember exactly what they all mean. You notice the due date on the program is three, no, make that two, weeks away. (Apparently it had been on your boss's desk for a week!) As you begin looking for definitions and sample code to put those definitions into context, you discover this book.
This book is for people who want to learn the fundamentals of Structured Query Language (SQL)--quickly. Through the use of countless examples, this book depicts all the major components of SQL as well as options that are available with various database implementations. You should be able to apply what you learn here to relational databases in a business setting.
The first 14 days of this book show you how to use SQL to incorporate the power of modern relational databases into your code. By the end of Week 1, you will be able to use basic SQL commands to retrieve selected data.
At the end of Week 2, you will be able to use the more advanced features of SQL, such as stored procedures and triggers, to make your programs more powerful. Week 3 teaches you how to streamline SQL code; use the data dictionary; use SQL to generate more SQL code; work with PL/SQL, Transact-SQL, and SQL*Plus; and handle common SQL mistakes and errors.
The syntax of SQL is explained and then brought to life in examples using Personal Oracle7, Microsoft Query, and other database tools. You don't need access to any of these products to use this book--it can stand alone as an SQL syntax reference. However, using one of these platforms and walking though the examples will help you understand the nuances.
Late one Friday afternoon your boss comes into your undersized cubicle and drops a new project on your desk. This project looks just like the others you have been working on except it includes ties to several databases. Recently your company decided to move away from homegrown, flat-file data and is now using a relational database. You have seen terms like SQL, tables, records, queries, and RDBMS, but you don't remember exactly what they all mean. You notice the due date on the program is three, no, make that two, weeks away. (Apparently it had been on your boss's desk for a week!) As you begin looking for definitions and sample code to put those definitions into context, you discover this book.
This book is for people who want to learn the fundamentals of Structured Query Language (SQL)--quickly. Through the use of countless examples, this book depicts all the major components of SQL as well as options that are available with various database implementations. You should be able to apply what you learn here to relational databases in a business setting.
The first 14 days of this book show you how to use SQL to incorporate the power of modern relational databases into your code. By the end of Week 1, you will be able to use basic SQL commands to retrieve selected data.
At the end of Week 2, you will be able to use the more advanced features of SQL, such as stored procedures and triggers, to make your programs more powerful. Week 3 teaches you how to streamline SQL code; use the data dictionary; use SQL to generate more SQL code; work with PL/SQL, Transact-SQL, and SQL*Plus; and handle common SQL mistakes and errors.
The syntax of SQL is explained and then brought to life in examples using Personal Oracle7, Microsoft Query, and other database tools. You don't need access to any of these products to use this book--it can stand alone as an SQL syntax reference. However, using one of these platforms and walking though the examples will help you understand the nuances.
