Essential SQL: A Gentle Introduction for Beginners

by Bala Paranj

You will learn the basics of SQL in this short book. The topics covered are:

Introduction
- What is a Database?
- What is Relational?
- What is a Table?
- What is a Column?
- What is a Key?
- What is a Foreign Key?
- What is SQL?
Create, Insert and Select Statements
- Create a Database
- Create a Table
- Counting Records
- Inserting Rows
- Retrieving All Columns
- Retrieving Single Column
- Retrieving Multiple Columns
- Limiting Results
- Retrieving Distinct Rows
Sorting
- Sorting Single Column
- Sorting by Multiple Columns
- Specifying Sort Direction
Search Conditions
- WHERE Clause
- WHERE Clause Operator
- Between a Range
- NULL Value
Advanced Search Conditions
- Multiple Conditions in WHERE Clause
- The AND Operator
- The OR Operator
- Combining AND and OR Operators
- The IN Operator
- The NOT Operator
Wildcard Search
- The Like Operator
- Matching Multiple Characters
- Matching Single Character
Calculated Fields
- What are Calculated Fields?
- Concatenating Fields
Aggregate Functions
- What are Aggregate Functions
- The AVG function
- The COUNT function
- The MAX function
- The MIN function
- The SUM function
- Combining Aggregate Functions
Grouping Data
- Why Group Data?
- Group By Clause
- Having Clause
Subqueries
- What are Subqueries?
- Problem
- Subqueries as Calculated Fields
Joins
- Why Joins?
- Join Example
Inner Joins
- What is Inner Joins?
- Joining Multiple Tables
- Using Joins Instead of Subqueries
Advanced Joins
- Data Population
- Self Join
- Natural Joins
- Outer Joins
Update and Delete
- Update
- Delete
Constraints
- What are Constraints?
- Primary Keys
- Foreign Keys
Indexes
- What are Indexes?
- Cost of Indexes
- How to Create Index

129 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 8, 2015