SamesTe的achyourselfSQLin10minutes.pdfVIP

Sames Teach yourself SQL in 10 minutes Lesson 1. Understanding SQL Database Basics Database software is actually called the Database Management System (or DBMS). The database is the container created and manipulated via the DBMS. A table is a structured file that can store data of a specific type. What Is SQL? Structured Query Language, designed specifically for communicating with databases. Many DBMS vendors have extended their support for SQL by adding statements or instructions to the language. The purpose of these extensions is to provide additional functionality or simplified ways to perform specific operations. And while often extremely useful, these extensions tend to be very DBMS specific, and they are rarely supported by more than a single vendor. Standard SQL is governed by the ANSI standards committee, and is thus called ANSI SQL. All major DBMSs, even those with their own extensions, support ANSI SQL. Lesson 2. Retrieving Data The SELECT Statement Its purpose is to retrieve information from one or more tables. Retrieving Individual Columns If query results are not explicitly sorted then data will be returned in no order of any significance. It may be the order in which the data was added to the table, but it may not. All extra white space within a SQL statement is ignored when that statement is processed. SQL statements can be specified on one long line or broken up over many lines. SQL statements are case insensitive. Retrieving Multiple Columns SQL statements typically return raw, unformatted data. data formatting is a presentation issue, not a retrieval issue. Therefore, presentation is typically specified in the application that displays the data. actual retrieved data is rarely used.