SQL Learn 1

Introduction
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100 XP
3 minutes
The SQL language
SQL is an acronym for Structured Query Language. SQL is used to communicate with
relational databases. SQL statements are used to perform tasks such as update data
in a database, or retrieve data from a database. For example, the SQL SELECT
statement is used to query the database and return a set of data rows. Some common
relational database management systems that use SQL include Microsoft SQL Server,
MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and Oracle.
There is a SQL language standard defined by the American National Standards

Institute (ANSI). Each vendor adds their own variations and extensions.
A SQL SELECT query retrieves a table of data from a database
In this module, you will learn how to:
Understand what SQL is and how it is used

Identify database objects in schemas
Identify SQL statement types
Use the SELECT statement to query tables in a database
Work with data types
Handle NULLs
Transact-SQL
Basic SQL statements, such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are available no
matter what relational database system you're working with. Although these SQL
statements are part of the ANSI SQL standard, many database management systems also
have their own extensions. These extensions provide functionality not covered by
the SQL standard, and include areas such as security management and
programmability. Microsoft database systems such as SQL Server, Azure SQL Database,
Azure Synapse Analytics, and others use a dialect of SQL called Transact-SQL, or T-
SQL. T-SQL includes language extensions for writing stored procedures and
functions, which are application code that is stored in the database, and managing
user accounts.
SQL is a Declarative language

Programming languages can be categorized as procedural or declarative. Procedural
languages enable you to define a sequence of instructions that the computer follows
to perform a task. Declarative languages enable you to describe the output you
want, and leave the details of the steps required to produce the output to the
execution engine.
SQL supports some procedural syntax, but querying data with SQL usually follows
declarative semantics. You use SQL to describe the results you want, and the
database engine's query processor develops a query plan to retrieve it. The query
processor uses statistics about the data in the database and indexes that are
defined on the tables to come up with a good query plan.
Relational data
SQL is most often (though not always) used to query data in relational databases. A
relational database is one in which the data has been organized in multiple tables
(technically referred to as relations), each representing a particular type of
entity (such as a customer, product, or sales order). The attributes of these
entities (for example, a customer's name, a product's price, or a sales order's
order date) are defined as the columns, or attributes, of the table, and each row
in the table represents an instance of the entity type (for example, a specific
customer, product, or sales order).
The tables in the database are related to one another using key columns that
uniquely identify the particular entity represented. A primary key is defined for
each table, and a reference to this key is defined as a foreign key in any related
table. This is easier to understand by looking at an example:
A relational database containing four tables
The diagram shows a relational database that contains four tables:
Customer
SalesOrderHeader
SalesOrderDetail
Product
Each customer is identified by a unique CustomerID field - this field is the
primary key for the Customer table. The SalesOrderHeader table has a primary key
named OrderID to identify each order, and it also includes a CustomerID foreign key
that references the primary key in the Customer table so it identifies which
customer is associated with each order. Data about the individual items in an order
are stored in the SalesOrderDetail table, which has a composite primary key that
combines the OrderID in the SalesOrderHeader table with a LineItemNo value. The
combination of these values uniquely identifies a line item. The OrderID field is
also used as a foreign key to indicate which order the line item belongs to, a
ProductID field is used as a foreign key to the ProductID primary key of the
Product table to indicate which product was ordered.
Set-based processing
Set theory is one of the mathematical foundations of the relational model of data
management and is fundamental to working with relational databases. While you might
be able to write queries in T-SQL without a thorough understanding of sets, you may
eventually have difficulty writing some of the more complex types of statements
that may be needed for optimum performance.
Without diving into the mathematics of set theory, you can think of a set as "a
collection of definite, distinct objects considered as a whole." In terms applied
to SQL Server databases, you can think of a set as a collection of distinct objects
containing zero or more members of the same type. For example, the Customer table
represents a set: specifically, the set of all customers. You will see that the
results of a SELECT statement also form a set.
As you learn more about T-SQL query statements, it is important to always think of
the entire set, instead of individual members. This mindset will better equip you
to write set-based code, instead of thinking one row at a time. Working with sets
requires thinking in terms of operations that occur "all at once" instead of one at
a time.
One important feature to note about set theory is that there is no specification
regarding any ordering of the members of a set. This lack of order applies to
relational database tables. There is no concept of a first row, a second row, or a
last row. Elements may be accessed (and retrieved) in any order. If you need to
return results in a certain order, you must specify it explicitly by using an ORDER
BY clause in your SELECT query.
Next unit: Work with schemas

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Introduction

There is a SQL language standard defined by the American National Standards

A SQL SELECT query retrieves a table of data from a database

In this module, you will learn how to:

Understand what SQL is and how it is used

SQL is a Declarative language

A relational database containing four tables

The diagram shows a relational database that contains four tables:

Next unit: Work with schemas

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