Do you speak SQL? We do, and in this book we provide you with an in-depth yet concise tutorial on using Structured Query Language (SQL), the standard that defines how to create and manipulate databases and the data they store. SQL is a simple yet powerful language, and you’ll be amazed at how many things you can do with just a few lines of code.

We teach you all the basic concepts and provide practical examples relevant to your daily programming tasks. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, this book will serve you well as a handy reference on SQL usage. It covers all the major SQL statements you’re likely to need when programming databases and provides example code for five major database systems: SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MySQL, and Access. In each case, we demonstrate how the database system vendor implements, and often extends, the SQL standard.

We finish off with two complete, real-world case studies that pull together many of the concepts presented throughout the book. We show how to create and query the underlying database for an e-commerce application, as well as how to implement role-based security in your applications.

Whether you’re just starting out with SQL, working with an unfamiliar database, or in need of a desktop reference, this book will provide you with the help and information you need to build effective database applications.