Beginner’s Guide to SQL Development

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Introduction

SQL, or Structured Query Language, is the standard language for dealing with Relational Databases. SQL can be used to insert, search, update, and delete database records. SQL is not just limited to query operations, but it also involves database creation, deletion, fetching rows, and modifying rows.

SQL Basics

Before diving into SQL commands, let’s understand the basics of SQL. Every time you’re dealing with data management systems, you are interacting with databases and their related tables.

A Database is a set of related data in an organized manner. It majorly consists of tables. A Table is a collection of related data held in a structured format within a database. It consists of columns and rows where each column stores specific attributes and each row displays a set of data.

Getting Started: SQL Syntax

Let’s consider we have a database named Employee with a table named Info. To view all the data present in the table, we use the SELECT statement.

This query means you are selecting all records from the table named Info.

SQL SELECT: Individual Columns

You might not need all the data from a table, in such cases, you can select individual columns. If our Info table has columns such as EmployeeName, EmployeeID, Salary, etc, we can select individual column like this:

This will give you all the names of employees present in the table.

SQL WHERE Clause

The WHERE clause is used to filter records. Let’s say if we want to select a specific employee’s details:

This will give you all the details of the employee named John.

Conclusion

This definitive guide provides an overview of how SQL works. We have only scratched the surface, and there’s much more to learn such as joins, updating records, deleting records, etc. Remember, continuous practice is the key to master SQL. Happy Coding!