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
  • Hour 5. Manipulating Data
    • Overview of Data Manipulation
    • Populating Tables with New Data
    • Updating Existing Data
    • Deleting Data from Tables
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • 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

Q&A

1. With all the warnings about DELETE and UPDATE , I'm a little afraid to use them. If I accidentally update all the records in a table because the WHERE clause was not used, can the changes be reversed?

   There is no reason to be afraid, because there is not much you can do to the database that cannot be corrected, although considerable time and work may be involved. The next hour discusses the concepts of transactional control, which allows data manipulation operations to either be finalized or undone.

2. Is the INSERT statement the only way to enter data into a table?

   No, just remember that the INSERT statement is ANSI standard. The various implementations have their tools to enter data into tables. For example, Oracle has a utility called SQL*Loader. Also, many of the various implementations have utilities called IMPORT that can be used to insert data. There are many good books on the market that will expand on these utilities.

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