SQL is a standard interactive and programming language for querying and modifying data and managing databases. This task-based tutorial and reference guide takes the mystery out learning and applying SQL. After going over the relational database model and SQL syntax in the first few chapters, veteran author Chris Fehily immediately launches into the tasks that will get readers comfortable with SQL. In addition to covering all the SQL basics, this thoroughly updated reference contains a wealth of in-depth SQL knowledge and serves as an excellent reference for more experienced users.

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I'm a research analyst at a large medical center. I pull data from various sources using SQL front-ends and stuff data into MS Access for analysis or additional manipulation. I needed an SQL reference for both parts of my job, understanding what I was getting from the hospital systems and writing better SQL in Access or imbeddded SQL in VBA code. This book serves my needs because it is a thorough reference and also because it has plenty of Access examples and tips.

I'm also impressed with the layout of the Visual QuickStart Guide. It is very easy to find the information you are after and the bullet points are generally right on target with the details important to the task at hand. I haven't had to read the entire book cover to cover to do some work, and that's the point. When the author does interject himself, his comments are insightful and meaningful. An example, "Although SELECT is powerful, it's not dangerous. You can't use it to add, change or delete data... The dangerous stuff starts in Chapter 9."

A great technical reference in a crowded field.

11 of 12 found the following review helpful:

Well done book for multi-vendor RDBM systems...May 31, 2005
By Thomas Duff "Duffbert"
To a large extent, I've been able to avoid much SQL work in my regular day-to-day programming. But with the release of Notes/Domino 7.0, it will be easier to integrate Notes data into a DB2 backend. That makes SQL expertise much more important. To help, I got a copy of SQL Visual Quickstart Guide (2nd Edition) by Chris Fehily. Pretty good book...

Chapter List: DBMS Specifics; The Relational Model; SQL Basics; Retrieving Data From A Table; Operators And Functions; Summarizing and Grouping Data; Joins; Subqueries; Set Operations; Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Rows; Creating, Altering, and Dropping Tables; Indexes; Views; Transactions; Creating The Sample Database; SQL Keywords; Index

Visual Quickstart books tend to be short on dry, meaningless dronings and heavy on practical "here's how you do ..." material. This one is no exception. Fehily has written a book that can be easily jump back and forth between tutorial and reference guide. You'll initially want to use the book to learn the specific skill, like how to create different types of joins between tables. You'll end up going back to the material on numerous occasions to either refresh your knowledge or look up a keyword. And because of the practical nature of the material, you won't spend a ton of time wading through stuff that doesn't directly relate to your job.

Another thing that's very useful in this book is that it's vendor-inclusive. In the DBMS Specifics chapter, Fehily talks about how the material relates to Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. This chapter doesn't tell you how to install those software packages, but it does tell you how to enter and run SQL scripts on each platform. Throughout the book, he also points out when a particular vendor either deviates from the standard, adds a nonstandard feature, or implements a feature in a fashion different than the others. So while you might be able to find specific SQL books for a specific platform, this will be a great addition for the person who has to interact with a number of relational database vendors on a regular basis.

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

Extensive Treatment of NullsSep 05, 2002
By Kenneth L Gutwillig
Anyone who uses SQL regularly knows that it's absolutely critical to understand nulls - you can't write SQL programs or interpret results without mastering them. In most of the SQL books that I've read, nulls are mentioned once near the beginning and not given much screen time afterwards - perhaps popping up in an example here and there. This book takes the different (and welcome) approach of weaving the implications of nulls throughout the entire text. In addition to null rudiments, this book addresses crucial issues such as detecting and counting nulls, how nulls give rise to three-value logic (true/false/unknown), when nulls are considered to be duplicates and when they aren't, substituting actual values for nulls and vice versa, how nulls sort, how nulls propagate through computations, which functions ignore nulls and which don't, how nulls affect joins, and how nulls cause problems in subqueries. The book also contains specific tips for Oracle, which (for some reason) considers empty strings to be nulls.

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