Articles Cookbook
18 May 2017
Dorota Wdzięczna

How to Sort Records with the ORDER BY Clause

Relational databases don't store records in alphabetical, numerical, ascending, or in any particular order. The only way to order records in the result set is to use the ORDER BY clause. You can use this clause to order rows by a column, a list of columns, or an expression. You can also order rows using the CASE expression. In this post, we'll take a look at the ORDER BY clause – how to write it, how it works, and what it does.
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15 May 2017
Aldo Zelen

Oracle Top-N Queries for Absolute Beginners

It's common to run a query using only part of a dataset – for example, the top 100 salespeople in a company. In this article, we'll see how to use Oracle's Top-N query method to query just these rows. Top-N queries retrieve a defined number of rows (top or bottom) from a result set. In other words, they find the best or worst of something – the ten best selling cars in a certain region, the five most popular routers, the 20 worst-performing stores, etc.
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8 May 2017
Dejan Sarka

Statistics in SQL: Centers of Distribution

My previous article explained how to calculate frequencies using T-SQL queries. Frequencies are used to analyze the distribution of discrete variables. Today, we’ll continue learning about statistics and SQL. In particular, we’ll focus on calculating centers of distribution. We’ll learn e.g. how to calculate the SQL median, what functions to use to calculate the SQL mode, and how to calculate various types of mean in SQL (geometric mean, harmonic mean and, of course, arithmetic mean).
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7 May 2017
Dorota Wdzięczna

Using CASE to Add Logic to a SELECT

As you write an SQL query, you may need to get values from multiple columns and change values from one form to another. The simple way to achieve this goal is to add a CASE expression to your SELECT statement. In this article, we'll introduce you to the syntax, formats, and uses of the CASE expression. The CASE expression is a conditional expression: it evaluates data and returns a result.
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4 May 2017
Marek Pankowski

Book Review: “Learn SQL the Hard Way” by Zed A. Shaw

“Learn SQL the Hard Way” by Zed A. Shaw is a great ebook for those who want to learn SQL essentials. At $19.99 USD, it may seem a bit expensive for an ebook, but you’re getting a DRM-free PDF, plus a whole bunch of explanatory videos and additional files. Who should read “Learn SQL the Hard Way”? Anyone interested in SQL basics – modifying databases or selecting information. Make no mistake about it: this book focuses heavily on the practical side of database language.
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27 Apr 2017
Maria Alcaraz

NULL Values and the GROUP BY Clause

We've already covered how to use the GROUP BY clause and some aggregation functions like SUM(), AVG(), MAX(), MIN(), COUNT(). In this article, we will explain how the GROUP BY clause works when NULL values are involved. We will also explain about using NULLs with the ORDER BY clause. The best way to master GROUP BY and NULL in SQL is through practice. I recommend the SQL Practice track at LearnSQL.
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20 Apr 2017
Dorota Wdzięczna

How to Use LIKE in SQL: SQL Pattern Matching

SQL pattern matching is a very important and useful ability. In this article, we look at how you can perform it using LIKE in SQL. SQL Pattern matching is a very simple concept. It allows you to search strings and substrings and find certain characters or groups of characters. Apart from SQL, this operation can be performed in many other programming languages. In this article, we’ll examine how you can use LIKE in SQL to search substrings.
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18 Apr 2017
Aldo Zelen

Understanding Numerical Data Types in SQL

Working with databases of any kind means working with data. This data can take a couple of predefined formats. As you start on your learning path with LearnSQL.com, you will start to understand SQL's different data types. In this article, we will cover different variations of the SQL numeric data type. We'll also examine some functions that convert data from one type to another. Creating tables is the first step in any SQL coding project.
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13 Apr 2017
Marek Pankowski

5 SQL Functions for Manipulating Strings

SQL functions used for manipulating strings, commonly called string functions, are among most important SQL’s tools. In this post, we’ll look at five ways you can perform various operations on strings. There are many SQL functions that let you “edit” string data. As you learn SQL, you’ll see how useful they prove. Some sql trim off unneeded spaces or characters; others tell you how long a string is. These functions give you a lot of opportunities to transform and work with strings, which makes your code more effective.
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10 Apr 2017
Francisco Claria

Preventing Common SQL Mistakes

Regardless of the engine you are using (SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc.), you can prevent common errors and simplify the debugging process. This article will discuss some of the common SQL mistakes you’ll face and will help you correct them easily. One of the best ways to prevent the most common SQL mistakes is to keep your queries clear and readable. It’s very easy to forget the ideas behind your code!
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