Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours

By Ron Plew and Ryan Stephens

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: A SQL Concepts Overview
  • Hour 1. Welcome to the World of SQL
  • Part II: Building Your Database
  • Hour 2. Defining Data Structures
  • Hour 3. Managing Database Objects
  • Hour 4. The Normalization Process
    • Normalizing a Database
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 5. Manipulating Data
  • Hour 6. Managing Database Transactions
  • Part III: Getting Effective Results from Queries
  • Hour 7. Introduction to the Database Query
  • Hour 8. Using Operators to Categorize Data
  • Hour 9. Summarizing Data Results from a Query
  • Hour 10. Sorting and Grouping Data
  • Hour 11. Restructuring the Appearance of Data
  • Hour 12. Understanding Dates and Times
  • Part IV: Building Sophisticated Database Queries
  • Hour 13. Joining Tables in Queries
  • Hour 14. Using Subqueries to Define Unknown Data
  • Hour 15. Combining Multiple Queries into One
  • Part V: SQL Performance Tuning
  • Hour 16. Using Indexes to Improve Performance
  • Hour 17. Improving Database Performance
  • Part VI: Using SQL to Manage Users and Security
  • Hour 18. Managing Database Users
  • Hour 19. Managing Database Security
  • Part VII: Summarized Data Structures
  • Hour 20. Creating and Using Views and Synonyms
  • Hour 21. Working with the System Catalog
  • Part VIII: Applying SQL Fundamentals in Today's World
  • Hour 22. Advanced SQL Topics
  • Hour 23. Extending SQL to the Enterprise, the Internet, and the Intranet
  • Hour 24. Extensions to Standard SQL
  • Part IX: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Common SQL Commands
  • Appendix B. Using MySQL for Exercises
  • Appendix C. Answers to Quizzes and Exercises
  • Appendix D. CREATE TABLE Statements for Book Examples
  • Appendix E. INSERT Statements for Data in Book Examples
  • Appendix F. Glossary
  • Appendix G. Bonus Exercises

Workshop

The following workshop is composed of a series of quiz questions and practical exercises. The quiz questions are designed to test your overall understanding of the current material. The practical exercises are intended to afford you the opportunity to apply the concepts discussed during the current hour, as well as build upon the knowledge acquired in previous hours of study. Please take time to complete the quiz questions and exercises before continuing. Refer to Appendix C,"Answers to Quizzes and Exercises," for answers.

Quiz

1. True or false: Normalization is the process of grouping data into logical related groups.

2. True or false: Having no duplicate or redundant data in a database, and having everything in the database normalized, is always the best way to go.

3. True or false: If data is in the third normal form, it is automatically in the first and second normal forms.

4. What is a major advantage of a denormalized database versus a normalized database?

5. What are some major disadvantages of denormalization?

Exercises

1. You are developing a new database for a small company. Take the following data and normalize it. Keep in mind that there would be many more items for a small company than you are given here.

   Employees:

   Angela Smith, secretary, 317-545-6789, RR 1 Box 73, Greensburg, Indiana, 47890, $9.50 hour, date started January 22, 1996, SSN is 323149669.

   Jack Lee Nelson, salesman, 3334 N Main St, Brownsburg, IN, 45687, 317-852-9901, salary of $35,000.00 year, SSN is 312567342, date started 10/28/95.

   Customers:

   Robert's Games and Things, 5612 Lafayette Rd, Indianapolis, IN, 46224, 317-291-7888, customer ID is 432A.

   Reed's Dairy Bar, 4556 W 10th St, Indianapolis, IN, 46245, 317-271-9823, customer ID is 117A.

   Customer Orders:

   Customer ID is 117A, date of last order is December 20, 1999, product ordered was napkins and the product ID is 661.

2. Navigate to the folder on your computer where you installed MySQL, and then to the bin folder. Double-click on the mysql.exe executable to invoke MySQL. Then type the following at the command prompt to use your database:

   
                  use learnsql; 
   
               

3. At the mysql> prompt, enter CREATE TABLE statements based on the tables you defined in Exercise 1.

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