The #1 Easy, Common-Sense Guide to SQL Queries—Updated for Today’s Databases, Standards, and Challenges

SQL Queries for Mere Mortals ® has earned worldwide praise as the clearest, simplest tutorial on writing effective SQL queries. The authors have updated this hands-on classic to reflect new SQL standards and database applications and teach valuable new techniques.

Step by step, John L. Viescas and Michael J. Hernandez guide you through creating reliable queries for virtually any modern SQL-based database. They demystify all aspects of SQL query writing, from simple data selection and filtering to joining multiple tables and modifying sets of data.

Three brand-new chapters teach you how to solve a wide range of challenging SQL problems. You’ll learn how to write queries that apply multiple complex conditions on one table, perform sophisticated logical evaluations, and think “outside the box” using unlinked tables.

Coverage includes

-- Getting started: understanding what relational databases are, and ensuring that your database structures are sound

-- SQL basics: using SELECT statements, creating expressions, sorting information with ORDER BY, and filtering data using WHERE

-- Summarizing and grouping data with GROUP BY and HAVING clauses

-- Drawing data from multiple tables: using INNER JOIN, OUTER JOIN, and UNION operators, and working with subqueries

-- Modifying data sets with UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE statements Advanced queries: complex NOT and AND, conditions, if-then-else using CASE, unlinked tables, driver tables, and more

Practice all you want with downloadable sample databases for today’s versions of Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft SQL Server, and the open source MySQL database. Whether you’re a DBA, developer, user, or student, there’s no better way to master SQL.

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John L. Viescas is an independent database consultant with more than 45 years of experience. He began his career as a systems analyst, designing large database applications for IBM mainframe systems. He spent 6 years at Applied Data Research in Dallas, Texas, where he directed a staff of more than 30 people and was responsible for research, product development, and customer support of database products for IBM mainframe computers. While working at Applied Data Research, John completed a degree in business finance at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating cum laude.

John joined Tandem Computers, Inc., in 1988, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of database marketing programs in Tandem’s U.S. Western Sales region. He developed and delivered technical seminars on Tandem’s relational database management system, NonStop SQL. John wrote his first book, A Quick Reference Guide to SQL (Microsoft Press, 1989), as a research project to document the similarities in the syntax among the ANSI-86 SQL standard, IBM’s DB2, Microsoft’s SQL Server, Oracle Corporation’s Oracle, and Tandem’s NonStop SQL. He wrote the first edition of Running Microsoft Access (Microsoft Press, 1992) while on sabbatical from Tandem. He has since written four editions of Running, three editions of Microsoft Office Access Inside Out (Microsoft Press, 2003, 2007, and 2010–the successor to the Running series), and Building Microsoft Access Applications (Microsoft Press, 2005).

John formed his own company in 1993. He provides information systems management consulting for a variety of small to large businesses around the world, with a specialty in the Microsoft Access and SQL Server database management products. He maintains offices in Nashua, New Hampshire, and Paris, France. He has been recognized as a “Most Valuable Professional” (MVP) since 1993 by Microsoft Product Support Services for his assistance with technical questions on public support forums. He set a landmark 20 consecutive years as an MVP in 2013.

You can visit John’s Web site at www.viescas.com or contact him by e-mail at john@viescas.com.

Michael J. Hernandez has been an independent relational database consultant specializing in relational database design. He has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, developing database applications for a wide variety of clients. He’s been a contributing author to a wide variety of magazine columns, white papers, books, and periodicals, and is coauthor of the best-selling SQL Queries for Mere Mortals.

Mike has been a top-rated and noted technical trainer for the government,the military, the private sector, and companies throughout the United States. He has spoken at numerous national and international conferences, and has consistently been a top-rated speaker and presenter.

Aside from his technical background,Mike has a diverse set of skills and interests that he also pursues, ranging from the artistic to the metaphysical. His greatest interest is still the guitar, as he’s been a practicing guitarist for more than 40 years and played professionally for 15 years. He’s also a working actor, a great cook, loves to teach (writing,public speaking,music), has a gift for bad puns, and even reads Tarot cards.

He says he’s never going to retire, per se, but rather just change whatever it is he’s doing whenever he finally gets tired of it and move on to something else that interests him.

Part I. Relational Databases and SQL
1. What Is Relational?
2. Ensuring Your Database Structure Is Sound
3. A Concise History of SQL

Part II. SQL Basics
4. Creating a Simple Query
5. Getting More Than Simple Columns
6. Filtering Your Data

Part III. Working with Multiple Tables
7. Thinking in Sets
8. INNER JOINs
9. OUTER JOINs
10. UNIONs
11. Subqueries

Part IV. Summarizing and Grouping Data
12. Simple Totals
13. Grouping Data
14. Filtering Grouped Data

Part V. Modifying Sets of Data
15. Updating Sets of Data
16. Inserting Sets of Data
17. Deleting Sets of Data

Part VI. Introduction to Solving Tough Problems
18. "Not" and "And" Problems
19. Using Unlinked Data
20. Condition Testing and "Driver" Tables