SQL Queries for Beginners

Course details

This two-day introductory course to SQL using SQL Server 2012 and MySQL 5.0 is aimed at those who are expected to develop and support the databases behind web services or internal business processes. At the end of the course, learners will have acquired the essential skills required to create and query databases.

Unit 1: Getting Started

Participants will have the option of using either SQL Server Management Studio or MySQL Workbench to develop their skills during the course. The choice of environment will depend on each individual's requirements.

Unit 2: Understanding Data Types

This unit introduces the different data types used to represent information in the database - such as strings, numbers, date and time.

Unit 3: Creating Databases

This unit introduces databases and the SQL statements required to define the structural characteristics of the database such as CREATE, ALTER and DROP.

Unit 4: Creating Tables and Indexes

This unit explains how tables are used for storing data and how you can use indexes to speed up access to the data.

Unit 5: Querying for Data

This unit teaches participants how to use the SELECT statement to retrieve information from the database tables. Participants will have the option of using either SQL Server Management Studio or MySQL Workbench to develop their skills during the course. The choice of e will learn how to specify the columns they want to retrieve, how to order their results, eliminate duplicates, compute summary values and use a union to combine queries into a single result set.

Unit 6: Understanding SQL expressions

This unit shows how to write expressions such as adding two or more fields together, using pattern matching to search strings and how to deal with NULL values.

Unit 7: Inserting and Updating data

This unit teaches participants how to modify the contents of the database by inserting records, modifying or replacing existing records and deleting records.

Unit 8: Working with Joins

This unit explains how to create relationships between tables to reduce duplication of data and how to write queries that join these tables together.

Unit 9: Working with Views

This unit explains how to convert regularly used SQL statements, particularly those that require complex joins, into Views. Views simplify access to data and can be used to present table contents differently for different users.

Unit 10: Importing and Exporting Data

This unit explains how to perform bulk import and export functions so that data be inserted into the database and retrieved in a variety of formats such as a CSV file.

Unit 11: Working with Stored Procedures and Functions

Stored procedures and functions are customisable, reusable routines that you can create for your database. Stored procedures offer an additional layer of security on database, controlling exactly how queries are executed against the database. Functions are useful when you need to compute specific values for your business function. This unit explains how to create and use both.