SQL - General Overview

SQL DML and DDL

SQL can be divided into two parts: The Data Manipulation Language (DML) and the Data Definition Language (DDL).

The query and update commands form the DML part of SQL: 

• SELECT - extracts data from a database
• UPDATE - updates data in a database
• DELETE - deletes data from a database
• INSERT INTO - inserts new data into a database

The DDL part of SQL permits database tables to be created or deleted. It also defines indexes (keys), specifies links between tables, and imposes constraints between tables. The most important DDL statements in SQL are:

• CREATE DATABASE - creates a new database
• ALTER DATABASE - modifies a database
• CREATE TABLE - creates a new table
• ALTER TABLE - modifies a table
• DROP TABLE - deletes a table
• CREATE INDEX - creates an index (search key)
• DROP INDEX - deletes an index

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

In a table, some of the columns may contain duplicate values. This is not a problem, however, sometimes you will want to list only the different (distinct) values in a table.
The DISTINCT keyword can be used to return only distinct (different) values.

SELECT DISTINCT column_name(s) FROM table_name

Operators Allowed in the WHERE Clause

With the WHERE clause, the following operators can be used:

Operator	Description
=	Equal
<>	Not equal
>	Greater than
<	Less than
>=	Greater than or equal
<=	Less than or equal
BETWEEN	Between an inclusive range
LIKE	Search for a pattern
IN	To specify multiple possible values for a column

Note: In some versions of SQL the <> operator may be written as !=

The ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set by a specified column.
The ORDER BY keyword sorts the records in ascending order by default.
If you want to sort the records in a descending order, you can use the DESC keyword.

SQL ORDER BY Syntax

SELECT column_name(s)FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name(s) ASC|DESC

The INSERT INTO Statement

The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert a new row in a table.

INSERT INTO table_name VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, column3,...) VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

The UPDATE Statement

UPDATE table_name SET column1=value, column2=value2,... WHERE  some_column=some_value

DELETE FROM Persons WHERE LastName='Tjessem' AND FirstName='Jakob'

Delete All Rows

DELETE FROM table_name or DELETE * FROM table_name

The TOP Clause

The TOP clause is used to specify the number of records to return.
The TOP clause can be very useful on large tables with thousands of records. Returning a large number of records can impact on performance.
Note: Not all database systems support the TOP clause.

SQL Server Syntax

SELECT TOP number|percent column_name(s)FROM table_name

SQL SELECT TOP Equivalent in MySQL and Oracle

MySQL Syntax  SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name LIMIT number

Oracle Syntax  SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE ROWNUM <= number

The LIKE Operator

SELECT column_name(s)FROM table_name WHERE column_name LIKE pattern

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE City LIKE 's%'

SQL Wildcards 

SQL wildcards can substitute for one or more characters when searching for data in a database.

SQL wildcards must be used with the SQL LIKE operator.

With SQL, the following wildcards can be used:

Wildcard	Description
%	A substitute for zero or more characters [SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE City LIKE '%nes%']
_	A substitute for exactly one character [SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName LIKE '_la']
[charlist]	Any single character in charlist
[^charlist] or [!charlist]	Any single character not in charlist

Using the [charlist] Wildcard

Now we want to select the persons with a last name that starts with "b" or "s" or "p" from the "Persons" table. We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE LastName LIKE '[bsp]%'

The IN Operator

SQL IN Syntax  SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE column_name IN value1,value2,...)

The BETWEEN Operator

The BETWEEN operator selects a range of data between two values. The values can be numbers, text, or dates.

SQL BETWEEN Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE column_name BETWEEN value1 AND value2

Note: The BETWEEN operator is treated differently in different databases!
In some databases, persons with the LastName of "Hansen" or "Pettersen" will not be listed, because the BETWEEN operator only selects fields that are between and excluding the test values.
In other databases, persons with the LastName of "Hansen" or "Pettersen" will be listed, because the BETWEEN operator selects fields that are between and including the test values.
And in other databases, persons with the LastName of "Hansen" will be listed, but "Pettersen" will not be listed (like the example above), because the BETWEEN operator selects fields between the test values, including the first test value and excluding the last test value.

SQL Alias

You can give a table or a column another name by using an alias. This can be a good thing to do if you have very long or complex table names or column names.
An alias name could be anything, but usually it is short.

SQL Alias Syntax for Tables  SELECT column_name(s)  FROM table_name AS alias_name

SQL Alias Syntax for Columns  SELECT column_name AS alias_name FROM table_name

SQL JOIN

The JOIN keyword is used in an SQL statement to query data from two or more tables, based on a relationship between certain columns in these tables.

Tables in a database are often related to each other with keys.

A primary key is a column (or a combination of columns) with a unique value for each row. Each primary key value must be unique within the table. The purpose is to bind data together, across tables, without repeating all of the data in every table.

Look at the "Persons" table:

P_Id	LastName	FirstName	Address	City
1	Hansen	Ola	Timoteivn 10	Sandnes
2	Svendson	Tove	Borgvn 23	Sandnes
3	Pettersen	Kari	Storgt 20	Stavanger

Note that the "P_Id" column is the primary key in the "Persons" table. This means that no two rows can have the same P_Id. The P_Id distinguishes two persons even if they have the same name.

Next, we have the "Orders" table:

O_Id	OrderNo	P_Id
1	77895	3
2	44678	3
3	22456	1
4	24562	1
5	34764	15

Note that the "O_Id" column is the primary key in the "Orders" table and that the "P_Id" column refers to the persons in the "Persons" table without using their names.

Notice that the relationship between the two tables above is the "P_Id" column

Different SQL JOINs

Before we continue with examples, we will list the types of JOIN you can use, and the differences between them.

• JOIN: Return rows when there is at least one match in both tables
• LEFT JOIN: Return all rows from the left table, even if there are no matches in the right table
• RIGHT JOIN: Return all rows from the right table, even if there are no matches in the left table
• FULL JOIN: Return rows when there is a match in one of the tables

SQL INNER JOIN Keyword

The INNER JOIN keyword return rows when there is at least one match in both tables.

SQL INNER JOIN Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1 INNER JOIN table_name2
ON table_name1.column_name=table_name2.column_name

PS: INNER JOIN is the same as JOIN.

The INNER JOIN keyword return rows when there is at least one match in both tables. If there are rows in "Persons" that do not have matches in "Orders", those rows will NOT be listed.

SQL LEFT JOIN Keyword

The LEFT JOIN keyword returns all rows from the left table (table_name1), even if there are no matches in the right table (table_name2).

SQL LEFT JOIN Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1 LEFT JOIN table_name2
ON table_name1.column_name=table_name2.column_name

PS: In some databases LEFT JOIN is called LEFT OUTER JOIN.

SQL RIGHT JOIN Keyword

The RIGHT JOIN keyword returns all the rows from the right table (table_name2), even if there are no matches in the left table (table_name1).

SQL RIGHT JOIN Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1 RIGHT JOIN table_name2 ON table_name1.column_name=table_name2.column_name

PS: In some databases RIGHT JOIN is called RIGHT OUTER JOIN.

SQL FULL JOIN Keyword

The FULL JOIN keyword return rows when there is a match in one of the tables.

SQL FULL JOIN Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1 FULL JOIN table_name2
ON table_name1.column_name=table_name2.column_name

The SQL UNION Operator
The UNION operator is used to combine the result-set of two or more SELECT statements.
Notice that each SELECT statement within the UNION must have the same number of columns. The columns must also have similar data types. Also, the columns in each SELECT statement must be in the same order.

SQL UNION Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1
UNION
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name2

Note: The UNION operator selects only distinct values by default. To allow duplicate values, use UNION ALL.

SQL UNION ALL Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1
UNION ALL
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name2

The SQL SELECT INTO Statement

The SQL SELECT INTO statement can be used to create backup copies of tables.

The SELECT INTO statement selects data from one table and inserts it into a different table.
The SELECT INTO statement is most often used to create backup copies of tables.

SQL SELECT INTO Syntax

We can select all columns into the new table:

SELECT * INTO new_table_name [IN externaldatabase] FROM old_tablename

SELECT * INTO Persons_Backup FROM Persons

SELECT * INTO Persons_Backup IN 'Backup.mdb' FROM Persons

We can also copy only a few fields into the new table:

SELECT LastName,FirstName INTO Persons_Backup FROM Persons

The CREATE DATABASE Statement

CREATE DATABASE database_name

The CREATE TABLE Statement

The CREATE TABLE statement is used to create a table in a database.

SQL CREATE TABLE Syntax

CREATE TABLE table_name
(
column_name1 data_type,
column_name2 data_type,
column_name3 data_type,
....
)

SQL Constraints

Constraints are used to limit the type of data that can go into a table.
Constraints can be specified when a table is created (with the CREATE TABLE statement) or after the table is created (with the ALTER TABLE statement).
We will focus on the following constraints:

• NOT NULL
• UNIQUE
• PRIMARY KEY
• FOREIGN KEY
• CHECK
• DEFAUL

SQL NOT NULL Constraint

The NOT NULL constraint enforces a column to NOT accept NULL values.
The NOT NULL constraint enforces a field to always contain a value. This means that you cannot insert a new record, or update a record without adding a value to this field.
The following SQL enforces the "P_Id" column and the "LastName" column to not accept NULL values:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

SQL UNIQUE Constraint

The UNIQUE constraint uniquely identifies each record in a database table.
The UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints both provide a guarantee for uniqueness for a column or set of columns.
A PRIMARY KEY constraint automatically has a UNIQUE constraint defined on it.
Note that you can have many UNIQUE constraints per table, but only one PRIMARY KEY constraint per table.

MySQL:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
UNIQUE (P_Id)
)

SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL UNIQUE,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

MySQL / SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access: To allow naming of a UNIQUE constraint, and for defining a UNIQUE constraint on multiple columns, use the following SQL syntax:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
CONSTRAINT uc_PersonID UNIQUE (P_Id,LastName)
)

SQL UNIQUE Constraint on ALTER TABLE

ALTER TABLE Persons ADD UNIQUE (P_Id)

To allow naming of a UNIQUE constraint, and for defining a UNIQUE constraint on multiple columns, use the following SQL syntax:

MySQL / SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

ALTER TABLE Persons ADD CONSTRAINT uc_PersonID UNIQUE (P_Id,LastName)

To DROP a UNIQUE Constraint

To drop a UNIQUE constraint, use the following SQL:
MySQL:

ALTER TABLE Persons DROP INDEX uc_PersonID

SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

ALTER TABLE Persons DROP CONSTRAINT uc_PersonID

SQL PRIMARY KEY Constraint

The PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each record in a database table.
Primary keys must contain unique values.
A primary key column cannot contain NULL values.
Each table should have a primary key, and each table can have only ONE primary key.

MySQL:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
PRIMARY KEY (P_Id)
)

SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

To allow naming of a PRIMARY KEY constraint, and for defining a PRIMARY KEY constraint on multiple columns, use the following SQL syntax:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
CONSTRAINT pk_PersonID PRIMARY KEY (P_Id,LastName)
)

SQL FOREIGN KEY Constraint

A FOREIGN KEY in one table points to a PRIMARY KEY in another table.

Let's illustrate the foreign key with an example. Look at the following two tables:

The "Persons" table:

P_Id	LastName	FirstName	Address	City
1	Hansen	Ola	Timoteivn 10	Sandnes
2	Svendson	Tove	Borgvn 23	Sandnes
3	Pettersen	Kari	Storgt 20	Stavanger

The "Orders" table:

O_Id	OrderNo	P_Id
1	77895	3
2	44678	3
3	22456	2
4	24562	1

Note that the "P_Id" column in the "Orders" table points to the "P_Id" column in the "Persons" table.

The "P_Id" column in the "Persons" table is the PRIMARY KEY in the "Persons" table.

The "P_Id" column in the "Orders" table is a FOREIGN KEY in the "Orders" table.

The FOREIGN KEY constraint is used to prevent actions that would destroy links between tables.

The FOREIGN KEY constraint also prevents that invalid data form being inserted into the foreign key column, because it has to be one of the values contained in the table it points to.

SQL CHECK Constraint

The CHECK constraint is used to limit the value range that can be placed in a column.
If you define a CHECK constraint on a single column it allows only certain values for this column.
If you define a CHECK constraint on a table it can limit the values in certain columns based on values in other columns in the row.

MySQL:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
CHECK (P_Id>0)
)

SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL CHECK (P_Id>0),
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

To allow naming of a CHECK constraint, and for defining a CHECK constraint on multiple columns, use the following SQL syntax:

MySQL / SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
CONSTRAINT chk_Person CHECK (P_Id>0 AND City='Sandnes')
)

SQL DEFAULT Constraint

The DEFAULT constraint is used to insert a default value into a column.
The default value will be added to all new records, if no other value is specified.

My SQL / SQL Server / Oracle / MS Access:

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255) DEFAULT 'Sandnes'
)

The DEFAULT constraint can also be used to insert system values, by using functions like GETDATE():

CREATE TABLE Orders
(
O_Id int NOT NULL,
OrderNo int NOT NULL,
P_Id int,
OrderDate date DEFAULT GETDATE()
)

An index can be created in a table to find data more quickly and efficiently.
The users cannot see the indexes, they are just used to speed up searches/queries.
Note: Updating a table with indexes takes more time than updating a table without (because the indexes also need an update). So you should only create indexes on columns (and tables) that will be frequently searched against.

SQL CREATE INDEX Syntax

Creates an index on a table. Duplicate values are allowed:

CREATE INDEX index_name ON table_name (column_name)

SQL CREATE UNIQUE INDEX Syntax

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name ON table_name (column_name)

The TRUNCATE TABLE Statement

What if we only want to delete the data inside the table, and not the table itself?
Then, use the TRUNCATE TABLE statement:

TRUNCATE TABLE table_name

The ALTER TABLE Statement

The ALTER TABLE statement is used to add, delete, or modify columns in an existing table.

SQL ALTER TABLE Syntax

To add a column in a table, use the following syntax:

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD column_name datatype

To delete a column in a table, use the following syntax (notice that some database systems don't allow deleting a column):

ALTER TABLE table_name DROP COLUMN column_name

My SQL / SQL Server / MS Access:

ALTER TABLE table_name ALTER COLUMN column_name datatype

Oracle:

ALTER TABLE table_name MODIFY column_name datatype

AUTO INCREMENT a Field

Syntax for MySQL

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
PRIMARY KEY (P_Id)
)

MySQL uses the AUTO_INCREMENT keyword to perform an auto-increment feature.
By default, the starting value for AUTO_INCREMENT is 1, and it will increment by 1 for each new record.
To let the AUTO_INCREMENT sequence start with another value, use the following SQL statement

ALTER TABLE Persons AUTO_INCREMENT=100

Syntax for SQL Server

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

The MS SQL Server uses the IDENTITY keyword to perform an auto-increment feature.
By default, the starting value for IDENTITY is 1, and it will increment by 1 for each new record.
To specify that the "P_Id" column should start at value 10 and increment by 5, change the identity to IDENTITY(10,5).

Syntax for Oracle

In Oracle the code is a little bit more tricky.
You will have to create an auto-increment field with the sequence object (this object generates a number sequence).

Use the following CREATE SEQUENCE syntax

CREATE SEQUENCE seq_person MINVALUE 1 START WITH 1 INCREMENT BY 1 CACHE 10

The code above creates a sequence object called seq_person, that starts with 1 and will increment by 1. It will also cache up to 10 values for performance. The cache option specifies how many sequence values will be stored in memory for faster access.
To insert a new record into the "Persons" table, we will have to use the nextval function (this function retrieves the next value from seq_person sequence):

INSERT INTO Persons (P_Id,FirstName,LastName)
VALUES (seq_person.nextval,'Lars','Monsen')

The SQL statement above would insert a new record into the "Persons" table. The "P_Id" column would be assigned the next number from the seq_person sequence. The "FirstName" column would be set to "Lars" and the "LastName" column would be set to "Monsen".

SQL CREATE VIEW Statement

In SQL, a view is a virtual table based on the result-set of an SQL statement.
A view contains rows and columns, just like a real table. The fields in a view are fields from one or more real tables in the database.
You can add SQL functions, WHERE, and JOIN statements to a view and present the data as if the data were coming from one single table.

SQL CREATE VIEW Syntax

CREATE VIEW view_name AS SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name
WHERE condition

Note: A view always shows up-to-date data! The database engine recreates the data, using the view's SQL statement, every time a user queries a view.

SQL Updating a View

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW view_name AS SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name
WHERE condition

SQL Dropping a View

DROP VIEW view_name

SQL Dates

The most difficult part when working with dates is to be sure that the format of the date you are trying to insert, matches the format of the date column in the database.
As long as your data contains only the date portion, your queries will work as expected. However, if a time portion is involved, it gets complicated.
Before talking about the complications of querying for dates, we will look at the most important built-in functions for working with dates.

MySQL Date Functions

The following table lists the most important built-in date functions in MySQL:

Function	Description
NOW()	Returns the current date and time
CURDATE()	Returns the current date
CURTIME()	Returns the current time
DATE()	Extracts the date part of a date or date/time expression
EXTRACT()	Returns a single part of a date/time
DATE_ADD()	Adds a specified time interval to a date
DATE_SUB()	Subtracts a specified time interval from a date
DATEDIFF()	Returns the number of days between two dates
DATE_FORMAT()	Displays date/time data in different formats

SQL Server Date Functions

The following table lists the most important built-in date functions in SQL Server:

Function	Description
GETDATE()	Returns the current date and time
DATEPART()	Returns a single part of a date/time
DATEADD()	Adds or subtracts a specified time interval from a date
DATEDIFF()	Returns the time between two dates
CONVERT()	Displays date/time data in different formats

SQL Date Data Types

MySQL comes with the following data types for storing a date or a date/time value in the database:

• DATE - format YYYY-MM-DD
• DATETIME - format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• TIMESTAMP - format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• YEAR - format YYYY or YY

SQL Server comes with the following data types for storing a date or a date/time value in the database:

• DATE - format YYYY-MM-DD
• DATETIME - format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• SMALLDATETIME - format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• TIMESTAMP - format: a unique number

 Data types and ranges for Microsoft Access, MySQL and SQL Server.

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Microsoft Access Data Types

Data type	Description	Storage
Text	Use for text or combinations of text and numbers. 255 characters maximum
Memo	Memo is used for larger amounts of text. Stores up to 65,536 characters. Note: You cannot sort a memo field. However, they are searchable
Byte	Allows whole numbers from 0 to 255	1 byte
Integer	Allows whole numbers between -32,768 and 32,767	2 bytes
Long	Allows whole numbers between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647	4 bytes
Single	Single precision floating-point. Will handle most decimals	4 bytes
Double	Double precision floating-point. Will handle most decimals	8 bytes
Currency	Use for currency. Holds up to 15 digits of whole dollars, plus 4 decimal places. Tip: You can choose which country's currency to use	8 bytes
AutoNumber	AutoNumber fields automatically give each record its own number, usually starting at 1	4 bytes
Date/Time	Use for dates and times	8 bytes
Yes/No	A logical field can be displayed as Yes/No, True/False, or On/Off. In code, use the constants True and False (equivalent to -1 and 0).Note: Null values are not allowed in Yes/No fields	1 bit
Ole Object	Can store pictures, audio, video, or other BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects)	up to 1GB
Hyperlink	Contain links to other files, including web pages
Lookup Wizard	Let you type a list of options, which can then be chosen from a drop-down list	4 bytes

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MySQL Data Types

In MySQL there are three main types : text, number, and Date/Time types.

Text types:

Data type	Description
CHAR(size)	Holds a fixed length string (can contain letters, numbers, and special characters). The fixed size is specified in parenthesis. Can store up to 255 characters
VARCHAR(size)	Holds a variable length string (can contain letters, numbers, and special characters). The maximum size is specified in parenthesis. Can store up to 255 characters. Note: If you put a greater value than 255 it will be converted to a TEXT type
TINYTEXT	Holds a string with a maximum length of 255 characters
TEXT	Holds a string with a maximum length of 65,535 characters
BLOB	For BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects). Holds up to 65,535 bytes of data
MEDIUMTEXT	Holds a string with a maximum length of 16,777,215 characters
MEDIUMBLOB	For BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects). Holds up to 16,777,215 bytes of data
LONGTEXT	Holds a string with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295 characters
LONGBLOB	For BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects). Holds up to 4,294,967,295 bytes of data
ENUM(x,y,z,etc.)	Let you enter a list of possible values. You can list up to 65535 values in an ENUM list. If a value is inserted that is not in the list, a blank value will be inserted. Note: The values are sorted in the order you enter them. You enter the possible values in this format: ENUM('X','Y','Z')
SET	Similar to ENUM except that SET may contain up to 64 list items and can store more than one choice

Number types:

Data type	Description
TINYINT(size)	-128 to 127 normal. 0 to 255 UNSIGNED*. The maximum number of digits may be specified in parenthesis
SMALLINT(size)	-32768 to 32767 normal. 0 to 65535 UNSIGNED*. The maximum number of digits may be specified in parenthesis
MEDIUMINT(size)	-8388608 to 8388607 normal. 0 to 16777215 UNSIGNED*. The maximum number of digits may be specified in parenthesis
INT(size)	-2147483648 to 2147483647 normal. 0 to 4294967295 UNSIGNED*. The maximum number of digits may be specified in parenthesis
BIGINT(size)	-9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807 normal. 0 to 18446744073709551615 UNSIGNED*. The maximum number of digits may be specified in parenthesis
FLOAT(size,d)	A small number with a floating decimal point. The maximum number of digits may be specified in the size parameter. The maximum number of digits to the right of the decimal point is specified in the d parameter
DOUBLE(size,d)	A large number with a floating decimal point. The maximum number of digits may be specified in the size parameter. The maximum number of digits to the right of the decimal point is specified in the d parameter
DECIMAL(size,d)	A DOUBLE stored as a string , allowing for a fixed decimal point. The maximum number of digits may be specified in the size parameter. The maximum number of digits to the right of the decimal point is specified in the d parameter

*The integer types have an extra option called UNSIGNED. Normally, the integer goes from an negative to positive value. Adding the UNSIGNED attribute will move that range up so it starts at zero instead of a negative number.

Date types:

Data type	Description
DATE()	A date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD Note: The supported range is from '1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31'
DATETIME()	*A date and time combination. Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS Note: The supported range is from '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59'
TIMESTAMP()	*A timestamp. TIMESTAMP values are stored as the number of seconds since the Unix epoch ('1970-01-01 00:00:00' UTC). Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS Note: The supported range is from '1970-01-01 00:00:01' UTC to '2038-01-09 03:14:07' UTC
TIME()	A time. Format: HH:MM:SS Note: The supported range is from '-838:59:59' to '838:59:59'
YEAR()	A year in two-digit or four-digit format. Note: Values allowed in four-digit format: 1901 to 2155. Values allowed in two-digit format: 70 to 69, representing years from 1970 to 2069

*Even if DATETIME and TIMESTAMP return the same format, they work very differently. In an INSERT or UPDATE query, the TIMESTAMP automatically set itself to the current date and time. TIMESTAMP also accepts various formats, like YYYYMMDDHHMMSS, YYMMDDHHMMSS, YYYYMMDD, or YYMMDD.

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SQL Server Data Types

Character strings:

Data type	Description	Storage
char(n)	Fixed-length character string. Maximum 8,000 characters	n
varchar(n)	Variable-length character string. Maximum 8,000 characters
varchar(max)	Variable-length character string. Maximum 1,073,741,824 characters
text	Variable-length character string. Maximum 2GB of text data

Unicode strings:

Data type	Description	Storage
nchar(n)	Fixed-length Unicode data. Maximum 4,000 characters
nvarchar(n)	Variable-length Unicode data. Maximum 4,000 characters
nvarchar(max)	Variable-length Unicode data. Maximum 536,870,912 characters
ntext	Variable-length Unicode data. Maximum 2GB of text data

Binary types:

Data type	Description	Storage
bit	Allows 0, 1, or NULL
binary(n)	Fixed-length binary data. Maximum 8,000 bytes
varbinary(n)	Variable-length binary data. Maximum 8,000 bytes
varbinary(max)	Variable-length binary data. Maximum 2GB
image	Variable-length binary data. Maximum 2GB

Number types:

Data type	Description	Storage
tinyint	Allows whole numbers from 0 to 255	1 byte
smallint	Allows whole numbers between -32,768 and 32,767	2 bytes
int	Allows whole numbers between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647	4 bytes
bigint	Allows whole numbers between -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 and 9,223,372,036,854,775,807	8 bytes
decimal(p,s)	Fixed precision and scale numbers. Allows numbers from -10^38 +1 to 10^38 –1. The p parameter indicates the maximum total number of digits that can be stored (both to the left and to the right of the decimal point). p must be a value from 1 to 38. Default is 18. The s parameter indicates the maximum number of digits stored to the right of the decimal point. s must be a value from 0 to p. Default value is 0	5-17 bytes
numeric(p,s)	Fixed precision and scale numbers. Allows numbers from -10^38 +1 to 10^38 –1. The p parameter indicates the maximum total number of digits that can be stored (both to the left and to the right of the decimal point). p must be a value from 1 to 38. Default is 18. The s parameter indicates the maximum number of digits stored to the right of the decimal point. s must be a value from 0 to p. Default value is 0	5-17 bytes
smallmoney	Monetary data from -214,748.3648 to 214,748.3647	4 bytes
money	Monetary data from -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807	8 bytes
float(n)	Floating precision number data from -1.79E + 308 to 1.79E + 308. The n parameter indicates whether the field should hold 4 or 8 bytes. float(24) holds a 4-byte field and float(53) holds an 8-byte field. Default value of n is 53.	4 or 8 bytes
real	Floating precision number data from -3.40E + 38 to 3.40E + 38	4 bytes

Date types:

Data type	Description	Storage
datetime	From January 1, 1753 to December 31, 9999 with an accuracy of 3.33 milliseconds	8 bytes
datetime2	From January 1, 0001 to December 31, 9999 with an accuracy of 100 nanoseconds	6-8 bytes
smalldatetime	From January 1, 1900 to June 6, 2079 with an accuracy of 1 minute	4 bytes
date	Store a date only. From January 1, 0001 to December 31, 9999	3 bytes
time	Store a time only to an accuracy of 100 nanoseconds	3-5 bytes
datetimeoffset	The same as datetime2 with the addition of a time zone offset	8-10 bytes
timestamp	Stores a unique number that gets updated every time a row gets created or modified. The timestamp value is based upon an internal clock and does not correspond to real time. Each table may have only one timestamp variable

Other data types:

Data type	Description
sql_variant	Stores up to 8,000 bytes of data of various data types, except text, ntext, and timestamp
uniqueidentifier	Stores a globally unique identifier (GUID)
xml	Stores XML formatted data. Maximum 2GB
cursor	Stores a reference to a cursor used for database operations
table	Stores a result-set for later processing

SQL has many built-in functions for performing calculations on data.

SQL Aggregate Functions

SQL aggregate functions return a single value, calculated from values in a column.
Useful aggregate functions:

• AVG() - Returns the average value
• COUNT() - Returns the number of rows
• FIRST() - Returns the first value
• LAST() - Returns the last value
• MAX() - Returns the largest value
• MIN() - Returns the smallest value
• SUM() - Returns the sum

SQL Scalar functions

SQL scalar functions return a single value, based on the input value.
Useful scalar functions:

• UCASE() - Converts a field to upper case
• LCASE() - Converts a field to lower case
• MID() - Extract characters from a text field
• LEN() - Returns the length of a text field
• ROUND() - Rounds a numeric field to the number of decimals specified
• NOW() - Returns the current system date and time
• FORMAT() - Formats how a field is to be displayed

Tip: The aggregate functions and the scalar functions will be explained in details in the next chapters.

SELECT AVG(OrderPrice) AS OrderAverage FROM Orders

SELECT Customer FROM Orders WHERE OrderPrice>(SELECT AVG(OrderPrice) FROM Orders)

SELECT COUNT(column_name) FROM table_name

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table_name

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT column_name) FROM table_name