Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

10
Views
Up to this point, we’ve been dealing with base objects — objects that have some level of substance
of their own. In this chapter, we’re going to go virtual (well, mostly anyway), and take a look at
views.
Views have a tendency to be used either too much, or not enough — rarely just right. When we’re
done with this chapter, you should be able to use views to:
❑ Reduce apparent database complexity for end users
❑ Prevent sensitive columns from being selected, while still affording access to other important
data
❑ Add additional indexing to your database to speed query performance — even when
you’re not using the view the index is based on
A view is, at its core, really nothing more than a stored query. What’s great is that you can mix and
match your data from base tables (or other views) to create what will, in most respects, function
just like another base table. You can create a simple query that selects from only one table and
leaves some columns out, or you can create a complex query that joins several tables and makes
them appear as one.
Simple V iews
The syntax for a view, in its most basic form, is a combination of a couple of things we’ve already
seen in the book — the basic CREATE statement that we saw back in Chapter 5, plus a SELECT
statement like we’ve used over and over again:
CREATE VIEW
AS