Practical the sequel SQL

For those who are working with SQL systems-or preparing to do so-this book offers information organized by use rather thon by feoture. Therefore, readers con turn to specific business problems and leorn how to solve them with the appropriate SQL features. In particular, the sequel focuses on the recil-world challenges of deoling with legacy systems, inherited problematic code, dirty data, and query tuning for better performance.

The following important topics are addressed:

o Finding and fixing dirty data with LIKE, BETWEEN, and LOCATE

o Monaging multiples and other complex data problems with ROWID, SIMILAR, GROUP BY, and HAVING

o Handling the multiple display formats of dates

o Translating values to expond compressed codes with CASE, DECODE, point functions, UNION, and subqueries

o Manipulating numbers, including using auto-numbering mechanisms, finding the high
value, locating every Mh, and more 1

o Tuning queries for enhanced performance, focusing on indexes and the optimizer

- Comporing vendors' system cotalogs and system functions

o Using SQL to genercite SQL for cleanup and permission scripts as well as crecting test ou,,]

A business-bosed working databose serves as a running example throughout the book. It provides the context for numerous code samples, ail of which are tested on multiple systems, including Adoptive Server Anywhere, Oracle, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase Adoptive Server Enterprise. The occompanying CD-ROM contoins the full sample databose as well as Adoptive Server Anywhere.

51 Judith S. Bowman has worked as a dotabase professional since the eurly 1980s at Sybase and other dotabose companies. She currently works as an incependent databose consultant. Sheis the lead outhor of the second and third editions, as well as the forthcoming fourth edition of The Proctical SQL Handbook (Addison-Wesley, 200 1).

Contents

• List of Tables
  
• List of figures
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• Chapter 1 : Introduction
  
• Chapter 2 : Handling Dirty Data
  
• Chapter 3 : Transkating values
  
• Chapter 4 : Managing Multiples
  
• Chapter 5 : Navigating Numbers
  
• Chapter 6: Tunning Queries
  
• Chapter 7: Using sql to write sql
  
• Appendix A : Understanding the sample DB :
  
• Appendix B : Comparing datatypes and functions
  
• Appendix C : Using resources
  
• Index