This latest edition of the best-selling implementation guide to the Structured Query Language teaches SQL fundamentals while providing practical solutions for critical business applications. The Practical SQL Handbook, Fourth Edition now includes expanded platform SQL coverage and extensive real-world examples based on feedback from actual SQL users. The Practical SQL Handbook begins with a step-by-step introduction to SQL basics and examines the issues involved in designing SQL-based database applications. It fully explores SQL's most popular implementations from industry leaders, Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, and Informix. Highlights include: *Detailed coverage of SQL commands for creating databases, tables, and indexes, and for *adding, changing, and deleting data *Using the SELECT command to retrieve specific data *Handling NULL values (missing information) in a relational database *Joining tables, including self joins and outer joins (ANSI and WHERE-clause syntax) *Working with nested queries (subqueries) to get data from multiple tables *Creating views (virtual tables) to provide customized access to data *Using SQL functions A bonus CD-ROM contains a time-limited, full-feature version of the Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere software as well as the sample database, scripts, and examples included in the book. The Practical SQL Handbook is the most complete reference available for day-to-day SQL implementations. 0201703092B05222001

Table of Contents

Preface. Introduction. 1.SQL and Relational Database Management. 2. Designing Datases. 3. Creating and Filling a Database. 4. Selecting Data from the Database. 5. Sorting Data and Other Selection Techniques. 6. Grouping Data and Reporting from it. 7. Joining Tables for Comprehensive Data Analysis. 8. Structuring Queries with Subqueries. 9. Creating and Using Views. 10. Security, Transactions, Performance, and Integrity. 11. Solving Business Problems. Appendix A: Syntax Summary for the SQL Used in This Book. Appendix B: Industry SQL Equivalents. Appendix C: Glossary. Appendix D: The 'bookbiz' Sample Database.

About the Author

Judith S. Bowman has been a database professional since the early 1980s. She is currently an independent consultant specializing in SQL and relational database issues and is the author of Practical SQL: The Sequel (Addison-Wesley, 2001). Sandra L. Emerson is an independent consultant and former Vice President of Publishing Programs for Sybase. Marcy Darnovsky, teaches at colleges throughout the San Francisco Bay area. She was formerly at Sybase. 0201703092AB04062001

Prizes

Concise, realistic, and hands-on, The Practical SQL Handbook has long been the #1 introduction to SQL. In this new Fourth Edition, Judith Bowman and her colleagues have extended the book to cover four leading database platforms: Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, and Sybase. Wherever standard SQL can be used on all of these databases, the authors provide it. Where variations exist, the authors illuminate them, showing how to use database-specific SQL features to best advantage. The Practical SQL Handbook covers all the SQL features and concepts most SQL users are likely to need. It starts with a review of SQL's role and evolution, and the fundamentals of effective database design and creation. Learn how to use subqueries to structure queries more effectively; create and use views; enforce security with GRANT and REVOKE statements; perform transactions; optimize SQL statements, and more. The book concludes by presenting solutions to key challenges users face in solving real-world business problems with SQL. For everyone with a basic knowledge of databases, including end-users, Web professionals, and database administrators.