Introduction to SQL for Absolute Beginners

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Welcome to our introductory guide on SQL designed specifically for absolute beginners. SQL which stands for Structured Query Language, is a coding language used for managing data held in relational database management systems. It is fundamental to server scripting and gaining insights from data. Let’s dive right in!

What is SQL?

As mentioned, SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It’s a standard language for accessing and manipulating databases. What does that mean? Well, a database is an organized collection of data. So, SQL is like your bridge to talk to the database directly, to ask it questions (‘queries’) and to make it do things.

Starting With SQL

To start with SQL, the first thing we need to understand is its syntax. Let’s look at a basic SQL statement:

In the above example, ‘SELECT * FROM Customers;’ is a statement saying “select all” (that’s what the * means) “from the table Customers”. The result would be all the records from the Customers table.

Common SQL Commands

Here are some common SQL commands you’ll come across and what they do:

• SELECT – extracts data from a database.
• UPDATE – updates data in a database.
• DELETE – deletes data from a database.
• INSERT INTO – inserts new data into a database.
• CREATE DATABASE – creates a new database.
• ALTER DATABASE – modifies a database.
• DROP DATABASE – deletes a database.

Practice SQL Command: SELECT

Here’s a practical example of the SELECT statement. Suppose we have the following Employee table:

And we want to select all the records where Age is greater than 30, we would use:

Try it yourself and play around with other queries. And there you have it – a brief introduction to SQL. Stay tuned to delve deeper into this topic and others related to SQL. Happy coding!