Head First SQL

Head First SQL

by Lynn Beighley
Released August 2007
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9780596526849

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Book description

Is your data dragging you down? Are your tables all tangled up? Well we've got the tools to teach you just how to wrangle your databases into submission. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory SQL learning experience, Head First SQL has a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.

Maybe you've written some simple SQL queries to interact with databases. But now you want more, you want to really dig into those databases and work with your data. Head First SQL will show you the fundamentals of SQL and how to really take advantage of it. We'll take you on a journey through the language, from basic INSERT statements and SELECT queries to hardcore database manipulation with indices, joins, and transactions. We all know "Data is Power" - but we'll show you how to have "Power over your Data". Expect to have fun, expect to learn, and expect to be querying, normalizing, and joining your data like a pro by the time you're finished reading!

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Table of contents

  1. Head First SQL
  2. Dedication
  3. A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
  4. Advance Praise for Head First SQL
  5. Praise for other Head First books
  6. Praise for the Head First Approach
  7. Author of Head First SQL
  8. How to use this Book: Intro
    1. Who is this book for?
    2. Who should probably back away from this book?
    3. We know what you’re thinking.
    4. And we know what your brain is thinking.
    5. Metacognition: thinking about thinking
    6. Here’s what WE did
    7. Here’s what YOU can do to bend your brain into submission
    8. Read me
    9. The technical review team
    10. Acknowledgments
  9. 1. Data and Tables: A place for everything
    1. Defining your data
    2. Look at your data in categories
    3. What’s in a database?
    4. Your database viewed through x-ray specs...
    5. Databases contain connected data
    6. Take command!
    7. Setting the table: the CREATE TABLE statement
    8. Creating a more complicated table
    9. Look how easy it is to write SQL
    10. Create the my_contacts table, finally
    11. Your table is ready
    12. Take a meeting with some data types
    13. Your table, DESCribed
    14. You can’t recreate an existing table or database!
    15. Out with the old table, in with the new
    16. To add data to your table, you’ll use the INSERT statement
    17. Create the INSERT statement
    18. Variations on an INSERT statement
    19. Columns without values
    20. Peek at your table with the SELECT statement
    21. Controlling your inner NULL
    22. NOT NULL appears in DESC
    23. Fill in the blanks with DEFAULT
    24. Your SQL Toolbox
  10. 2. The SELECT Statement: Gifted data retrieval
    1. Date or no date?
    2. Making contact
    3. A better SELECT
    4. What the * is that?
    5. How to query your data types
    6. More punctuation problems
    7. Unmatched single quotes
    8. Single quotes are special characters
    9. INSERT data with single quotes in it
      1. Handle quotes with a backslash
      2. Handle quotes with an extra single quote
    10. SELECT specific data
    11. The old way
    12. SELECT specific columns to limit results
    13. SELECT specific columns for faster results
    14. Doughnut ask what your table can do for you...
    15. Ask what you can do for your doughnut
    16. Combining your queries
    17. Finding numeric values
    18. Once is enough
    19. Smooth Comparison Operators
    20. Finding numeric data with Comparison Operators
    21. Text data roping with Comparison Operators
    22. Selecting your ingredients
    23. To be OR not to be
    24. The difference between AND and OR
    25. Use IS NULL to find NULLs
    26. Meanwhile, back at Greg’s place...
    27. Saving time with a single keyword: LIKE
    28. The call of the Wild(card)
    29. That’s more LIKE it
      1. Selecting ranges using AND and comparison operators
    30. Just BETWEEN us... there’s a better way
    31. After the dates, you are either IN...
    32. ... or you are NOT IN
    33. More NOT
    34. Your SQL Toolbox
  11. 3. DELETE and UPDATE: A change will do you good
    1. Clowns are scary
    2. Clown tracking
    3. How our clown data gets entered
    4. Bonzo, we’ve got a problem
    5. Getting rid of a record with DELETE
    6. Using our new DELETE statement
    7. DELETE rules
    8. The INSERT-DELETE two step
    9. Be careful with your DELETE
    10. The trouble with imprecise DELETE
    11. Change your data with UPDATE
    12. UPDATE rules
    13. UPDATE is the new INSERT-DELETE
    14. UPDATE in action
    15. UPDATE your prices
    16. All we need is one UPDATE
    17. Your SQL Toolbox
  12. 4. Smart Table Design: Why be normal?
    1. Two fishy tables
    2. A table is all about relationships
    3. Atomic data
      1. 30 minutes or it’s free
      2. Location, location, location
    4. Atomic data and your tables
    5. Reasons to be normal
    6. The benefits of normal tables
    7. Clowns aren’t normal
    8. Halfway to 1NF
    9. PRIMARY KEY rules
    10. Getting to NORMAL
    11. Fixing Greg’s table
    12. The CREATE TABLE we wrote
    13. Show me the
    14. Time-saving command
    15. The CREATE TABLE with a PRIMARY KEY
    16. 1, 2, 3... auto incrementally
    17. Adding a PRIMARY KEY to an existing table
    18. ALTER TABLE and add a PRIMARY KEY
    19. Your SQL Toolbox
  13. 5. Alter: Rewriting the Past
    1. We need to make some changes
    2. Table altering
    3. Extreme table makeover
    4. Renaming the table
    5. We need to make some plans
    6. Retooling our columns
    7. Structural changes
    8. ALTER and CHANGE
    9. Change two columns with one SQL statement
    10. Quick! DROP that column
    11. A closer look at the non-atomic location column
    12. Look for patterns
    13. A few handy string functions
      1. To SELECT the last two characters
      2. To SELECT everything in front of the comma
    14. Use a current column to fill a new column
    15. How our UPDATE and SET combo works
    16. Your SQL Toolbox
  14. 6. Advanced Select: Seeing your data with new eyes
    1. Dataville Video is reorganizing
    2. Problems with our current table
    3. Matching up existing data
    4. Populating the new column
      1. The order does matter
    5. UPDATE with a CASE expression
    6. Looks like we have a problem
    7. Tables can get messy
    8. We need a way to organize the data we SELECT
    9. Try a little ORDER BY
    10. ORDER a single column
    11. ORDER with two columns
    12. ORDER with multiple columns
    13. An orderly movie_table
      1. and the ordered results from our query:
    14. Reverse the ORDER with DESC
    15. The Girl Sprout® cookie sales leader problem
    16. SUM can add them for us
    17. SUM all of them at once with GROUP BY
    18. AVG with GROUP BY
    19. MIN and MAX
    20. COUNT the days
    21. SELECT DISTINCT values
    22. LIMIT the number of results
    23. LIMIT to just second place
    24. Your SQL Toolbox
  15. 7. Multi-Table Database Design: Outgrowing your table
    1. Finding Nigel a date
    2. Why change anything?
    3. The query worked really well
    4. It worked too well
    5. Ignoring the problem isn’t the answer
    6. Too many bad matches
    7. Use only the first interest
    8. A possible match
    9. Mis-matched
    10. Add more interest columns
    11. Starting over
    12. All is lost...
    13. ... But wait
    14. Think outside of the single table
    15. The multi-table clown tracking database
    16. The clown_tracking database schema
    17. An easier way to diagram your tables
    18. How to go from one table to two
    19. Linking your tables in a diagram
    20. Connecting your tables
    21. Foreign key facts
    22. Constraining your foreign key
    23. Why bother with foreign keys?
    24. CREATE a table with a FOREIGN KEY
    25. Relationships between tables
    26. Patterns of data: one-to-one
    27. Patterns of data: when to use one-to-one tables
      1. When to use one-to-one tables
    28. Patterns of data: one-to-many
    29. Patterns of data: getting to many-to-many
    30. Patterns of data: we need a junction table
    31. Patterns of data: many-to-many
    32. Patterns of data: fixing gregs_list
    33. Not in first normal form
    34. Finally in 1NF
    35. Composite keys use multiple columns
    36. Even superheros can be dependent
    37. Shorthand notations
    38. Superhero dependencies
    39. Partial functional dependency
    40. Transitive functional dependency
    41. Second normal form
    42. We might be 2NF already...
    43. Third normal form (at last)
    44. And so, Regis (and gregs_list) lived happily ever after
    45. The End
    46. Your SQL Toolbox
  16. 8. Joins and Multi-Table Operations: Can’t we all just get along?
    1. Still repeating ourselves, still repeating...
    2. Prepopulate your tables
    3. We got the “table ain’t easy to normalize” blues
    4. The special interests (column)
    5. Keeping interested
    6. UPDATE all your interests
    7. Getting all the interests
    8. Many paths to one place
    9. CREATE, SELECT and INSERT at (nearly) the same time
    10. CREATE, SELECT and INSERT at the same time
    11. What’s up with that AS?
    12. Column aliases
    13. Table aliases, who needs ’em?
    14. Everything you wanted to know about inner joins
    15. Cartesian join
    16. Releasing your inner join
    17. The inner join in action: the equijoin
    18. The inner join in action: the non-equijoin
    19. The last inner join: the natural join
    20. Joined-up queries?
    21. Your SQL Toolbox
  17. 9. Subqueries: Queries within queries
    1. Greg gets into the job recruiting business
    2. Greg’s list gets more tables
    3. Greg uses an inner join
    4. But he wants to try some other queries
    5. Subqueries
    6. We combine the two into a query with a subquery
    7. Subquery rules
    8. Subquery rules
    9. A subquery construction walkthrough
    10. A subquery as a SELECT column
    11. Another example: Subquery with a natural join
    12. A noncorrelated subquery
    13. A noncorrelated subquery with multiple values: IN, NOT IN
    14. Correlated subqueries
    15. A (useful) correlated subquery with NOT EXISTS
    16. EXISTS and NOT EXISTS
    17. Greg’s Recruiting Service is open for business
    18. On the way to the party
    19. Your SQL Toolbox
  18. 10. Outer Joins, Self-Joins, and Unions: New maneuvers
    1. Cleaning up old data
    2. It’s about left and right
    3. Here’s a left outer join
      1. The results of the left outer join
    4. Outer joins and multiple matches
    5. The right outer join
    6. While you were outer joining...
    7. We could create a new table
    8. How the new table fits in
    9. A self-referencing foreign key
    10. Join the same table to itself
    11. We need a self-join
    12. Another way to get multi-table information
    13. You can use a UNION
    14. UNION is limited
    15. UNION rules in action
    16. UNION ALL
    17. Create a table from your union
    18. INTERSECT and EXCEPT
    19. We’re done with joins, time to move on to...
    20. Subqueries and joins compared
    21. Turning a subquery into a join
    22. A self-join as a subquery
    23. Greg’s company is growing
    24. Your SQL Toolbox
  19. 11. Constraints, Views, and Transactions: Too many cooks spoil the database
    1. Greg’s hired some help
    2. Jim’s first day: Inserting a new client
    3. Jim avoids a NULL
    4. Flash forward three months
    5. CHECK, please: Adding a CHECK CONSTRAINT
    6. CHECKing the gender
    7. Frank’s job gets tedious
    8. Creating a view
    9. Viewing your views
    10. What your view is actually doing
    11. What a view is
    12. Inserting, updating, and deleting with views
    13. The secret is to pretend a view is a real table
    14. View with CHECK OPTION
    15. Your view may be updatable if...
    16. When you’re finished with your view
    17. When bad things happen to good databases
    18. What happened inside the ATM
    19. More trouble at the ATM
    20. It’s not a dream, it’s a transaction
    21. The classic ACID test
    22. SQL helps you manage your transactions
    23. What should have happened inside the ATM
    24. How to make transactions work with MySQL
    25. Now try it yourself
    26. Your SQL Toolbox
  20. 12. Security: Protecting your assets
    1. User problems
    2. Avoiding errors in the clown tracking database
    3. Protect the root user account
    4. Add a new user
    5. Decide exactly what the user needs
    6. A simple GRANT statement
    7. GRANT variations
    8. REVOKE privileges
    9. REVOKING a used GRANT OPTION
    10. REVOKING with precision
    11. The problem with shared accounts
    12. Using your role
    13. Role dropping
    14. Using your role WITH ADMIN OPTION
      1. REVOKE role with CASCADE
      2. REVOKE role with RESTRICT
    15. Combining CREATE USER and GRANT
    16. Greg’s List has gone global!
    17. Your SQL Toolbox
    18. How about a Greg’s List in your city?
    19. Use SQL on your own projects, and you too could be like Greg!
  21. A. Leftovers: The Top Ten Topics (we didn’t cover)
    1. #1. Get a GUI for your RDBMS
      1. MySQL GUI tools
      2. Other GUI tools
    2. #2. Reserved Words and Special Characters
      1. Special Characters
      2. Reserved Words
    3. #3. ALL, ANY, and SOME
      1. Using ALL
      2. Using ANY
      3. Using SOME
    4. #4. More on Data Types
      1. BOOLEAN
      2. INT
      3. Other INT types
      4. DATE and TIME types
    5. #5. Temporary tables
      1. Reasons you might want a temporary table:
      2. Create a temporary table
      3. A temporary table shortcut
    6. #6. Cast your data
      1. Some situations where you might want to use CAST()
      2. You can’t use CAST() in these situations
    7. #7. Who are you? What time is it?
    8. #8. Useful numeric functions
    9. #9. Indexing to speed things up
    10. #10. 2-minute PHP/MySQL
      1. A closer look at each line
  22. B. MySQL Installation: Try it out for yourself
    1. Get started, fast!
    2. Instructions and Troubleshooting
    3. Steps to Install MySQL on Windows
      1. Download your installer
      2. Pick a destination folder
      3. Click “Install” and you’re done!
    4. Steps to Install MySQL on Mac OS X
  23. C. Tools Roundup: All your new SQL tools
  24. D.  
    1. Symbols
    2. A
    3. B
    4. C
    5. D
    6. E
    7. F
    8. G
    9. I
    10. L
    11. M
    12. N
    13. O
    14. P
    15. S
    16. T
    17. U
    18. V
    19. W
  25. Index
  26. About the Author
  27. Copyright

Product information

  • Title: Head First SQL
  • Author(s): Lynn Beighley
  • Release date: August 2007
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9780596526849