SQL Fundamentals (3rd Edition)

SQL for the Real World

Don’t just learn “generic” SQL. Learn SQL to get results with the world’s top database platforms–Oracle for the enterprise and Microsoft Access for the desktop. Based on John Patrick’s hands-on SQL course at the University of California, Berkeley Extension, this book shows exactly how to retrieve the data you want, when you need it, in any application–from ad hoc reports to the data warehouse. Thoroughly updated for the newest versions of Oracle, Access, and the SQL standard, this book contains more exercises, techniques, and solutions than ever before. You’ll learn exactly how to write SQL queries that are easy to understand, verify, modify, and extend–even if you’ve never worked with databases before.

SQL Fundamentals,Third Edition, teaches you how to

• Build simple statements to retrieve, store, or modify data
• Craft complex queries that draw information from multiple tables
• Sort and summarize your data just the way you want it
• Create and edit your own tables
• Protect the integrity of your data
• Create more efficient, high-performance queries
• Work with unions, subqueries, self joins, cross joins, inner joins, and outer joins
• Use the Oracle Data Dictionary

About the Web Site

The accompanying Web site, http://groups.google.com/group/sqlfun, contains all the SQL code and tables from the book, including the full databases for several versions of Access and code for building the corresponding Oracle databases. It also provides solutions to many of the book’s problems and an open area for discussions with the author and other readers.

Here's the approach: Author John J. Patrick sets out a task--for example, writing a statement that yields a left outer join of two databases. Then he proceeds to accomplish the task in both Access and Oracle, presenting the platforms' respective SQL statements side by side. The differences between the two implementations of SQL are obvious, making it easy for someone familiar with one of the two environments to adapt to the other. The reader will also find the numbered and highlighted key passages, which include details on the facing page, very helpful.

Patrick, who based this book on a university course he teaches, knows the value of practical experience--he's loaded SQL Fundamentals with exercises in addition to the tasks he completes himself. He leaves most of these to the reader but provides solutions to some of the more interesting ones. Databases for the illustrations and exercises are included on the companion CD-ROM. --David Wall