SQL Queries for Mere Mortals

John L. Viescas is an independent database consultant with more than 50 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), Building Microsoft Access Applications (Microsoft Press, 2005), and Effective SQL (Addison-Wesley, 2017). 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 was recognized as a “Most Valuable Professional” (MVP) from 1993 to 2015 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.

Part I: Relational Databases and SQL
Chapter 1: What Is Relational?
Chapter 2: Ensuring Your Database Structure Is Sound
Chapter 3: A Concise History of SQL
Part II: SQL Basics
Chapter 4: Creating a Simple Query
Chapter 5: Getting More Than Simple Columns
Chapter 6: Filtering Your Data
Part III: Working with Multiple Tables
Chapter 7: Thinking in Sets
Chapter 8: INNER JOINs
Chapter 9: OUTER JOINs
Chapter 10: UNIONs
Chapter 11: Subqueries
Part IV: Summarizing and Grouping Data
Chapter 12: Simple Totals
Chapter 13: Grouping Data
Chapter 14: Filtering Grouped Data
Part V: Modifying Sets of Data
Chapter 15: Updating Sets of Data
Chapter 16: Inserting Sets of Data
Chapter 17: Deleting Sets of Data
PART VI Introduction to Solving Tough Problems
Chapter 18 “NOT” And “AND” Problems
Chapter 19 Condition Testing
Chapter 20 Using Unlinked Data and “Driver” Tables
Chapter 21 Performing Complex Calculations on Groups
Chapter 22: More SQL Server Complex Problems to Solve
APPENDICES
Appendix A: SQL Standard Diagrams
Appendix B: Schema for the Sample Databases
Appendix C: Date and Time Functions
Appendix D: Suggested Reading