Beginning SQL

Databases are great at dealing with large amounts of data that need to be searched, sorted, or regularly
updated. As you find out in the next few chapters, databases combined with SQL allow you to get the
answers you want in the order you want.
Database Management Systems Used in This Book
Databases are great for storing data, the database management system provides ways of looking at the
data, and usually software provided allows you to view the data. But how do you use the data outside
of the database management software? The operating system, whether it’s Windows, UNIX, Linux, or
the Macintosh, provides ways of hooking into the database management system and extracting the data.
You need to write programming code to put inside a stand-alone application that the user runs on their
computer, or you could set up a Web page to extract data. You’re not restricted to certain languages, so
long as the language allows you to hook into the database management software.
You can buy any number of different relational database management systems off the shelf, but this
book’s aim is to present SQL that is standards compliant (more on the standards in the next section) and
that works with as wide a range of RDBMSs as possible. However, there are times when the standards
don’t allow you to do what you want. Other times, you may find that the various DBMS vendors
haven’t implemented them consistently. This book provides details specific to MS Access, MS SQL
Server 2000, IBM DB2, MySQL, and Oracle 10.
Structured Query Language (SQL)
The first questions to ask are what is SQL and how do you use it with databases? SQL has three
main roles:
❑ Creating a database and defining its structure
❑ Querying the database to obtain the data necessary to answer questions
❑ Controlling database security
Defining database structure includes creating new database tables and fields, setting up rules for data
entry, and so on, which is expressed by a SQL sublanguage called Data Control Language (DCL),
covered later in this chapter. The next section discusses querying the database.
Finally, DCL deals with database security. Generally, database security is something that database
administrators handle.
Creating SQL every time you want to change the database structure or security sounds like hard work,
and it is! Most modern database systems allow you to execute changes via a user-friendly interface
without a single line of SQL.
Introducing SQL Queries
Introduction to SQL
SQL queries are the most common use of SQL. A SQL sublanguage called Data Manipulation Language
(DML) deals with queries and data manipulation. SQL allows you to pose a query (basically a question)
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