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Tagline: Add a core competency to your skill set that every programmer, system administrator, database administrator, and data scientist should have.

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Build a core level of competency in SQL so you can recognize the parts of queries and write simple SQL statements. SQL knowledge is essential for anyone involved in programming, data science, and data management. This book covers features of SQL that are standardized and common across most database vendors. You will gain a base of knowledge that will prepare you to go deeper into the specifics of any database product you might encounter.
Examples in the book are worked in PostgreSQL and SQLite, but the bulk of the examples are platform agnostic and will work on any database platform supporting SQL. Early in the book you learn about table design, the importance of keys as row identifiers, and essential query operations. You then move into more advanced topics such as grouping and summarizing, creating calculated fields, joining data from multiple tables when it makes business sense to do so, and more. Throughout the book, you are exposed to a set-based approach to the language and are provided a good grounding in subtle but important topics such as the effects of null value on query results. With the explosion of data science, SQL has regained its prominence as a top skill to have for technologists and decision makers worldwide. SQL Primer will guide you from the very basics of SQL through to the mainstream features you need to have a solid, working knowledge of this important, data-oriented language.
What You´ll Learn

Create and populate your own database tables

Read SQL queries and understand what they are doing

Execute queries that get correct results

Bring together related rows from multiple tables

Group and sort data in support of reporting applications
Get a grip on nulls, normalization, and other key concepts
Employ subqueries, unions, and other advanced features Who This Book Is For

Anyone new to SQL who is looking for step-by-step guidance toward understanding and writing SQL queries. The book is aimed at those who encounter SQL statements often in their work, and provides a sound baseline useful across all SQL database systems. Programmers, database managers, data scientists, and business analysts all can benefit from the baseline of SQL knowledge provided in this book.

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1. An Introduction to SQL 2. Getting Your Database Ready 3. The Benefit of Constraints 4. Operations on Tables 5. Writing Basic Queries 6. Manipulating Data 7. Organizing Your Data 8. Doing More with Queries 9. Calculated Fields 10. Aggregation and Grouping 11. Understanding Joins 12. Subqueries 13. Working in Sets 14. Views 15. Indexing 16. Access Control Statements 17: Appendix A. Further Reading 18. Appendix B. Database Management Systems and Tools 19. Appendix C. A History of SQL and Relational Databases

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