Getting Started with SQL: A Hands-On Approach for Beginners

Businesses are gathering data today at exponential rates and yet few people know how to access it meaningfully. If you’re a business or IT professional, this short hands-on guide teaches you how to pull and transform data with SQL in significant ways. You will quickly master the fundamentals of SQL and learn how to create your own databases.

Author Thomas Nield provides exercises throughout the book to help you practice your newfound SQL skills at home, without having to use a database server environment. Not only will you learn how to use key SQL statements to find and manipulate your data, but you’ll also discover how to efficiently design and manage databases to meet your needs.

You’ll also learn how to:

• Explore relational databases, including lightweight and centralized models
• Use SQLite and SQLiteStudio to create lightweight databases in minutes
• Query and transform data in meaningful ways by using SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, and ORDER BY
• Join tables to get a more complete view of your business data
• Build your own tables and centralized databases by using normalized design principles
• Manage data by learning how to INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE records

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Why Learn SQL?
Chapter 2. Databases
Chapter 3. SQLite
Chapter 4. SELECT
Chapter 5. WHERE
Chapter 6. GROUP BY and ORDER BY
Chapter 7. CASE Statements
Chapter 8. JOIN
Chapter 9. Database Design
Chapter 10. Managing Data
Chapter 11. Going Forward
Appendix A. Operators and Functions
Appendix B. Supplementary Topics