Larry Rockoff - The Language of SQL (2nd Edition)

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Second Edition

Larry Rockoff

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The Language of SQL, Second Edition
Copyright 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-13-465825-4

ISBN-10: 0-13-465825-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945436

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: August 2016

Editor
Mark Taber

Project and Copy Editor
Dan Foster, Scribe Tribe

Technical Editor
Siddhartha Singh

Designer
Chuti Prasertsith

Compositor
Danielle Foster, Scribe Tribe

Indexer
Valerie Haynes Perry

Proofreader
Scout Festa

Trademarks

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. The publisher cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Warning and Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty or fitness is implied. The information provided is on an as is basis. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information contained in this book.

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Larry Rockoff has been involved with SQL and business intelligence development for many years. His main area of interest is in using reporting tools to explore and analyze data in complex databases. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, with a specialization in management science. He currently works with data warehouse and reporting applications for a major retail pharmacy.

Besides writing about SQL, he has also published books on Microsoft Access and Excel.

He also maintains a website that features book reviews on technology topics, focusing on analytics and business intelligence as well as broader societal issues, at

larryrockoff.com

Please feel free to visit that site to contact the author with any comments or questions. You are also encouraged to follow his Facebook author page or Twitter site at

facebook.com/larryrockoff
twitter.com/larryrockoff

A huge thanks goes out to all at Pearson who assisted with this book. Id like to specifically thank Mark Taber, who was instrumental in bringing this book to Pearson from my previous publisher. Id also like to thank project editor and copy editor Dan Foster, as well as Danielle Foster, who was responsible for the page layout. Siddhartha Singh did a superb job on the technical review. Chuti Prasertsith provided a wonderfully vibrant cover design. Finally, I must mention the generally thankless but essential tasks of the books indexer, Valerie Haynes Perry, and proofreader, Scout Festa.

As this is a second edition, Id also like to thank all readers of the first edition, and especially those individuals who have contacted me at larryrockoff.com and offered gracious comments as to the usefulness of the book in their personal lives. Its both humbling and thrilling to realize that your thoughts on a relatively mundane topic can assist someone halfway around the world.

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SQL, or Structured Query Language, is the primary language used to communicate with relational databases. The goal of this book is to serve as a useful introductory guide to this essential language.

In an alternate universe, the title of this book might have been The Logic of SQL. This is because, like all computer languages, the language of SQL has much more to do with cold hard logic than with English vocabulary. Nevertheless, the word language has been retained in the title for a number of reasons. First, a certain language-based syntax in SQL distinguishes it from other computer languages. Unlike other languages, SQL employs many ordinary words, such as WHERE and FROM, as keywords in its syntax.