How to Use SQL

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SQL stands for Structured Query Language and was originally developed by IBM in the 70’s to interact with relational databases. It is the common language for databases, remains fairly readable and it is relatively simple to learn the basics (although the language can be very powerful).

Steps

1. 'SQL' is usually pronounced like 'sequel' but some people spell it out as 'S.Q.L.'
2. There are various dialects of SQL but most widely used database engines today adhere to the SQL99 standard from ANSI, and many vendors have implemented extra features to extend that standard (the Microsoft 'flavour' of SQL is called T-SQL or Transact-SQL).
3. Getting the Data Out! This is what it usually is all about. For this we use the SELECT statement; it will query or retrieve data from a SQL database.
4. A simple example would be something like: 'select * from tblMyCDList' which would get all columns (that's where the * comes in) and rows in the table 'tblMyCDList'.
5. Queries are usually much more complicated than this. The select can be used to tease out particular columns and rows out of a table and even link data from multiple tables or, for that matter, databases together.
6. If we want to filter the rows returned by the select statement, a where clause is needed to qualify the recordsets returned. 'select * from tblMyCDList where CDid = 27' will retrieve the rows where the field CDid is equal to 27. Or 'select * from tblAttribute where strCDName like 'Dark Side%' ' uses a wildcard representing zero or more instances of any character and will hopefully show that my collection does have my favourite Pink Floyd album.
7. INSERT and UPDATE statements are used to add and change data in a SQL database (check the links below for some excellent tutorials that can take you further).
8. The DELETE statement is used to remove data from a SQL database.

Tips

* It is very easy to attach to SQL databases from within Microsoft Access (it's query tool can be used in SQL mode although the syntax has differences from that used with SQL Server and other databases).
* Microsoft Query is a tool that comes with Windows – it has graphical or SQL query modes.
* Under Linux, the most popular databases are likely MySQL and PostgreSQL. If the console seems not convenient, use ExecuteQuery or some other similar open source tool.
* The following book may be helpful: Kline, Kevin, Daniel Kline and Brand Hunt. 2001. SQL in a Nutshell. 2nd Edition. O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
* Use wamp or xampp an easier web server with phpmyadmin (mysql)




from wikihow