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Articles Database Database SQL

SQL for Developers: Basic Data Retrieval

Tim Corey, 11 Jan 2011

CPOL

Rate this:

4.92 (19 votes)

The developers guide to writing powerful SQL commands while avoiding the pitfalls that come from an incomplete knowledge of what is
going on under the hood.
Download Basic_Data_Retrieval_-_Executable.zip - 7.43 KB
Download Basic_Data_Retrieval_-_Project.zip - 13.04 KB

Introduction
As a software developer, I am often called upon to write SQL queries to retrieve data from the database. Since being the DBA is part of

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my role, I have found it quite natural to do so. However, I have come across a number of developers who do not understand how to write
an efficient T-SQL command. This article is designed with the developers in mind but it will be equally useful for database developers who
want to brush up on their skills. This particular article focuses on the basics of how to retrieve data from a database.

Purpose
Throughout this article I will cover the basics of how to access data from a SQL database as well as my suggestions for how to best use
each of these tools. Most of these techniques should work on any modern version of Microsoft SQL. I will do my best to point out when
commands are only available in certain versions of SQL. All queries have been designed to run against the AdventureWorks database.
Microsoft provides this sample database for free on their website.
Please note that it is outside the scope of this document to really discuss in depth how these queries should be called (from code directly
or through stored procedures). I would say that, when in doubt, use a stored procedure.

T-SQL Test Platform

Included with this article is a very simple test platform that I developed to help you see how these commands would run. With this, you
can play with the different options and mix and match the different commands in a safe manner. The tool is not meant to be
production-ready code. It is simply a way to quickly execute these commands without needing to open a SQL command window. Ive
included the EXE for those who dont want to load the project and build it. This project also comes loaded with all of the samples that I
give you in this article.

Standard Commands
The first thing you learn when being taught how to access data in a database are the following commands: SELECT, FROM, WHERE,
ORDER BY. These command are the foundation on which most queries are built. SELECT tells the system what columns you want, FROM
says where to get the columns, WHERE filters the results, and ORDER BY puts the results into the desired order. Here is a basic example of
this type of query:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT Name, ProductNumber, Color

FROM Production.Product
WHERE Color = 'Black'
ORDER BY Name ASC, ProductNumber ASC
Name
-------------------------------------------------Chainring
Full-Finger Gloves, L
Full-Finger Gloves, M
Full-Finger Gloves, S
Half-Finger Gloves, L

(93 row(s) affected)

ProductNumber
------------------------CR-7833
GL-F110-L
GL-F110-M
GL-F110-S
GL-H102-L

Color
--------------Black
Black
Black
Black
Black

Best Practice: The ORDER BY command can order in ascending or descending order. This is specified by an ASC or DESC after the
column name. If you do not specify anything, the column is sorted ascending. However, it is good practice to write this out instead of
leaving it implied.
Best Practice: While SELECT * will give you every column, avoid this method if at all possible. By specifying which columns you want, you
will reduce the bandwidth needed to transfer the results to the client.
Key Point: You do not need to have a column listed in the SELECT statement in order to use it in the WHERE clause. It simply needs to be
a column in one of the referenced items in the FROM statement.
Key Point: Query sections get evaluated in the following order: FROM, WHERE, SELECT, ORDER BY. This means that if you create an alias
(see below) in your SELECT statement, the WHERE statement will not be able to reference it (since it hasnt been evaluated yet) but the
ORDER By statement can use it.
Key Point: Query results are not ordered unless specifically given an order. It may seem like they are always returned in the same order
without an ORDER BY statement but this is not reliable. If you want your records returned in a specific order, you must specify it.

Filtering Results with WHERE

We already touched on how to use a WHERE statement above but I wanted to go into a bit more depth on what you can do and, more
importantly what you should and should not do using a WHERE statement. The WHERE statement at its best utilizes the tables index in
order to quickly limit what data is returned in the result set. For example, this query takes advantage of a nonclustered unique index on
the Name column:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT Name,StandardCost

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FROM Production.Product
WHERE Name = 'HL Bottom Bracket'
Name
StandardCost
-------------------------------------------------- --------------------HL Bottom Bracket
53.9416
(1 row(s) affected)
What if, however, we wanted every bottom bracket in our database, not just the HL Bottom Bracket? In that case, we could use the LIKE
keyword instead of the equals in our WHERE statement and use the percent (%) sign to represent a multi-character wildcard. That query
would look like this:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT Name,StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
WHERE Name LIKE '% Bottom Bracket'
Name
-------------------------------------------------HL Bottom Bracket
LL Bottom Bracket
ML Bottom Bracket

StandardCost
--------------------53.9416
23.9716
44.9506

(3 row(s) affected)
That gives us the results we wanted but at a fairly significant cost. The first query used an Index Seek (very efficient) while this second
query uses an Index Scan (inefficient). The reason for this is because we put the wildcard at the beginning of the statement. Sometimes
you cannot help this. For example, in this query it would be very difficult to find all of the items with the text Bottom Bracket" in their text.
Moving the wildcard anywhere else in the text will allow the system to do an Index Seek again.
Best Practice: When you have multiple statements in the WHERE section, use parenthesis to ensure the proper order of execution. For
example, (Name=Wrench AND Color=Blue) OR Color=Black is different from Name=Wrench AND

(Color=Blue OR Color=Black).
Best Practice: As we learned above, avoid putting a wildcard character at the beginning of the search text. This will dramatically improve
the performance of your query.
Best Practice: Avoid performing functions on the left side of a WHERE statement. For example, the following would be functionally
equivalent to the query we did above but it would actually perform even worse than our existing poorly performing query:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT Name,StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
WHERE SUBSTRING(Name,4,14) = 'Bottom Bracket'
Name
-------------------------------------------------LL Bottom Bracket
ML Bottom Bracket
HL Bottom Bracket

StandardCost
--------------------23.9716
44.9506
53.9416

(3 row(s) affected)

Limiting Results with TOP

If you only want a certain number of records to be returned, you can use the TOP command to specify either the number of records or
the percentage of records to return. Note that this does not filter the results, it just grabs the specified number (or percentage) of records
off of the top of the query and returns them. This command can be useful in a number of ways. One way this can be useful is if you want
to return only the top five items from your inventory based upon their cost. You would simply order the query by cost in descending
order so that the most expensive product is on top and then you would select only the top five records. Here is an example of doing this:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT TOP 5 Name,StandardCost

FROM Production.Product
ORDER BY StandardCost DESC
Name
-------------------------------------------------Road-150 Red, 62
Road-150 Red, 44
Road-150 Red, 48
Road-150 Red, 52
Road-150 Red, 56

StandardCost
--------------------2171.2942
2171.2942
2171.2942
2171.2942
2171.2942

(5 row(s) affected)

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If you wanted to return the top five percent of your products based upon price, you would simply modify the above statement to begin

SELECT TOP 5 PERCENT

If you want to get a random set of rows returned, use the TOP statement in your SELECT and put a ORDER
so (I ran it twice to show you that it is random):

BY newid() at the end like

Hide Copy Code

SELECT TOP 3 Name,StandardCost

FROM Production.Product
ORDER BY NEWID()
Name
-------------------------------------------------ML Fork
Mountain-500 Silver, 40
HL Touring Frame - Yellow, 50

StandardCost
--------------------77.9176
308.2179
601.7437

(3 row(s) affected)
Name
-------------------------------------------------Mountain End Caps
LL Road Frame - Red, 52
Mountain-200 Black, 38

StandardCost
--------------------0.00
187.1571
1251.9813

(3 row(s) affected)
Key Point: The method I showed you of finding the most expensive items does not take into account items with the same price. In my
example, all five items that return have the same Standard Cost. If I only wanted the top three, which ones would it give me? The answer is
the first three it found. This order might change without notice unless you had specified a second column to order by as well.

Linking two (or more) tables or queries together with JOINs

Linking multiple tables or queries together using a JOIN statement is a large topic on its own. While I could cover it in depth, there is
already a great article on CodeProject that covers the issue very well. Here is the link: Visual_SQL_Joins.aspx. It even has pictures.
I will just add my comments and ideas on how to best implement joins. The one thing you will notice especially here but also throughout
the rest of this article is that I advocate being explicit in whatever you do. Dont assume the next person to come along will know all of the
implicit rules. Besides, it usually makes the query more readable to write things out fully.
Best Practice: Using just the keyword JOIN implies an INNER JOIN. However, write it out. Dont make the next person to come along
remember if it is INNER or OUTER.
Best Practice: You can specify how the two tables are joined in the FROM statement or in the WHERE statement. For the sake of clarity,
specify this information in the FROM statement. When you put it in the WHERE statement, it confuses the join information with the
filtering information.
Best Practice: The keyword OUTER may be omitted when you specify the type of OUTER JOIN (LEFT, RIGHT, FULL). This may be more of a
preference since it becomes obvious that it is an OUTER join but include the keyword OUTER.

Renaming items using the AS keyword

Sometimes a table has a column name that isnt what you would want it named. It might be cryptic (GL00101 this is an actual column
name in the Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains database), too long (TheTotalNumberOfProducts), too generic (Name), or just not to your
liking. Whatever the reason might be, you can rename the column by simply adding the AS keyword followed by the new name (as long
as the new name does not conflict with an existing column in your query). Here is an example:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT TOP 3 Name AS Product_Name, StandardCost

FROM Production.Product
WHERE Name LIKE 'Mountain%'
ORDER BY Product_Name ASC
Product_Name
-------------------------------------------------Mountain Bike Socks, L
Mountain Bike Socks, M
Mountain Bottle Cage

StandardCost
--------------------3.3963
3.3963
3.7363

(3 row(s) affected)
I limited the results to three since this is a demonstration query. Notice that I renamed the Name column to be Product_Name so that it
was easier to read. It would make even more sense if we had a query that contained a customers name as well as the product name.
I intentionally made this query a bit tricky just to show off what we have already discussed. Notice that the WHERE clause references the

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Name column while the ORDER BY clause references the Product_Name column. Remember this is because the WHERE clause is evaluated
before the SELECT while the ORDER BY is evaluated after the SELECT. If we wanted to use the name Product_Name in our WHERE clause,
we could do so like this:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT TOP 3 *
FROM (
SELECT Name AS Product_Name, StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
) AS Prod
WHERE Product_Name LIKE 'Mountain%'
ORDER BY Product_Name ASC
Product_Name
-------------------------------------------------Mountain Bike Socks, L
Mountain Bike Socks, M
Mountain Bottle Cage

StandardCost
--------------------3.3963
3.3963
3.7363

(3 row(s) affected)
Basically we need to create the query (without limits) inside of parenthesis and use that as the table in the FROM statement. Notice that we
named the entire nested query as Prod. You need to name the query something so that you can reference it. The end result of all of this is
the same except that we could use the column name Product_Name in our WHERE clause. When doing this, be careful to place items in
the right query. For example, I put my TOP 3" limiter in the outer query instead of the inner query because otherwise I would have gotten
bad results (we need to apply our WHERE to the entire table, not just three records).

Finding ranges of data using BETWEEN and IN

We can use the typical operators like >, <, and = in our WHERE clause to find the data we want. However, there are a couple of extra
commands that we can put in our toolbox as well. The first command we will look at is the BETWEEN operator. Here is an example of how
to use this operator:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
WHERE StandardCost BETWEEN 1 AND 2
StandardCost
--------------------1.8663
1.8663
1.4923
1.8663
(4 row(s) affected)
The syntax is easy enough to read. This method is syntactically equivalent to the following statement:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
WHERE StandardCost >= 1
AND StandardCost <=2
StandardCost
--------------------1.8663
1.8663
1.4923
1.8663
(4 row(s) affected)
If you look at the execution plan, these two statements actually evaluate to the same plan which means there is no performance gain or
loss by using the BETWEEN operator. The biggest thing we gain is a simpler statement. Note that the BETWEEN operator includes the
lower and upper ends so if there were an item that sold for 2 dollars it would be included in this list. The same would be true for an item
that cost one dollar.
The next operator we want to look at is the IN operator. This operator tells the system to find an exact match to one of the items in the
list. The list can have two or more items in it. Here is an example of how to use the IN operator:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT StandardCost
FROM Production.Product

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WHERE StandardCost IN (1.8663, 44.9506, 1.4923)

StandardCost
--------------------1.8663
1.8663
1.4923
1.8663
44.9506
(5 row(s) affected)
If we were going to write this out using the standard operators, this is how it would look:
Hide Copy Code

SELECT StandardCost
FROM Production.Product
WHERE StandardCost = 1.8663
OR StandardCost = 44.9506
OR StandardCost = 1.4923
StandardCost
--------------------1.8663
1.8663
1.4923
1.8663
44.9506
(5 row(s) affected)
While the execution plan does not write out the translation of this query, it executes the same plan for both of these queries. Again, this
means that the IN operator does not cause any performance gains or losses. It is simply an easier way to write out our query.

Advanced Topics
I have intentionally not covered some of the advanced topics including grouping of results, temporary tables, parameters and other
important T-SQL topics. I intend to cover these and more in my next article. SQL has a lot to offer developers. While it would be great if
you could read a good SQL book or two completely in order to get a full picture of how to build SQL statements properly, I intent to give
you the condensed version in these articles.

Conclusion
In this article, we have learned how to use the basic commands and operators in T-SQL statements. With this knowledge you can build
simple commands to gather data from one or more tables in Microsoft SQL. Along the way we discussed some of the best practices that
should be followed as well as a few gotchas that we should be aware of when building our queries. I hope you have found at least
something that could be of benefit to you from this article. I appreciate constructive feedback and look forward to your thoughts on how
this article could be approved.

History
January 11, 2011: Initial version

License
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

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Tim Corey
Software Developer (Senior) Epicross
United States
I am currently a Lead Technical Consultant for a consulting company called Epicross. My primary
skills are in .NET, SQL, JavaScript, and other web technologies although I have worked with
PowerShell, C, and Java as well.
In my previous positions, I have worked as a lead developer and IT Director. As such, I have been
able to develop software on a number of different types of systems and I have learned how to
correctly oversee the overall direction of technology for an organization. I've developed
applications for everything from machine automation to complete ERP systems.
My current position is mainly focused making our clients more efficient and effective. I use
custom software (desktop, mobile, and web) to help facilitate this goal. When I'm not working
for the company, I'm usually developing applications to fill the needs of the organizations I
volunteer for.

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