SQL: with practice exercises, Learn SQL Fast

167 Pages·2016·0.5 MB·English

by  Armstrong D.

Table of Contents
Answers
Table of Contents
Copyright
Disclaimer
Introduction – SQL - Why you should learn it
SQL is widely used
SQL can do many things
SQL skills are transferable
Learning SQL is simple
Microsoft SSMS – How to get free SQL software
The big picture
What to download
Where to download it from
Choosing between 32-bit and 64-bit
Completing the download
Installing
Northwind – How to get a free database to practice on
The big picture
Download your database
Install your database
Connect to your database in SMSS
Tables – What’s in a database
Introduction
Finding tables
Looking at tables
What tables are
Rows
Columns
Relationships
Technical terms
The next step
SELECT – How to query (get data from) a database table
Making New Queries
The Query
The explanation
Linked answers
How to get specific columns
A note on how this book formats queries
SELECT - How to do calculations within rows
Introduction
An example
Keeping things organised
A note on units of currency
More math - operators
Constants
SELECT without FROM
Modulus
Brackets
Text Strings
String literals
String literals with AS
Functions
Null
The IsNull Function
Other functions
The next step
WHERE - How to get the rows you want
Matching values
Comments
Case
Clauses
Matching Values Inexactly
Matching on calculations
Matching text values inexactly with LIKE
Colour-coding
Date values and literals
Dates and times
AND / OR / NOT – How to get the rows you want more precisely
AND - Ranges
AND - Multiple conditions
OR – Being flexible
Brackets
NOT – Saying what you don’t want
DISTINCT - How to remove duplicates
ORDER BY - How to sort your rows
TOP - How to take a small sample of rows
Bottom
GROUP BY - How to summarise row data
Sum
Aggregate functions
Other Aggregate Functions
Grouping
Grouping by multiple fields
HAVING - How to get the rows you want, after summarising
Applying this to other tables
Multiple aggregate functions
Alias - How to query with less typing
Column Alias
Table Alias
INNER JOIN - How to combine related records from different tables
Other ways to join
Outer Joins – How to get unrelated records
The problem with inner joins
What it all means
Left Outer Joins
Right Outer Joins
Inner Joins vs. Outer Joins
Full Outer Joins
Self-Join - How to join a table to itself, and why you would want to
Cross Join – getting all possible combinations of table rows
Introducing cross joins
How cross joins work
Uses of cross joins
UNION / UNION ALL - How to combine rows from two tables
UNION ALL
UNION
INTERSECT – How to get rows that are only in both tables
EXCEPT – How to get rows that are only in one table
Sys / Metadata - How to get information about your database
Learning from existing views
Subqueries - How to make one query use a result from another
Subqueries in the FROM clause
The IN operator
Subqueries in the WHERE clause – using the IN operator
Subqueries in the WHERE clause – the ALL operator
Subqueries in the WHERE clause - the “ANY” operator
Where to go from here
Author’s note
Other books you may find useful
Learn SQL Fast
A query writing course you can read on the train, based on software
you can download for free

Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by D Armstrong