Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Internals

Table creation

To create a table, SQL Server uses the ANSI SQL standard CREATE TABLE syntax. SQL Server Management Studio provides a front-end, fill-in-the-blank table designer that can sometimes make your job easier. Ultimately, the SQL syntax is always sent to SQL Server to create a table, no matter what interface you use. This chapter emphasizes direct use of the Data Definition Language (DDL) rather than discussing the GUI tools. You should keep all DDL commands in a script so that later you can easily rerun them to re-create the table. (Even if you use one of the friendly front-end tools, the ability to re-create the table later is critical.) Management Studio and other front-end tools can create and save operating system files using the ...