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Session One Presentation

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14 views17 pages

Session One Presentation

Uploaded by

Mastan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Deep-Dive Into SQL – Session One

.education
Session Content

• What is SQL?
• Connecting to the course database
• Selecting data from a table
• Filtering rows
• Logical and mathematical operators
• Some notes on syntax, structure,
terminology, and dialects
What is SQL?

• SQL is a language designed for managing relational databases

• These are made up of tables, rows, and columns

• You can consult this structure in the database schema

• Why use databases for storage?

• Speed, size, scalability, concurrency, relationality

• SQL allows us to retrieve data to then visualize, model, and analyse

• Its important that you know how to retrieve data ‘smartly’


Connecting to the course database

• During the course we will enable you to practice on real-life


databases by hosting some on our servers

• To access these, we recommend DBeaver.

• To connect, enter the following details:


• host: sql.wdss.io
• port: 33061
• user: guest
• password: relational
An example relational database
Fetching data by columns
• The simplest selection of data that we can do is
retrieving specific columns from a specific table:

• SELECT column_name
FROM table_name;

• You can also select multiple columns in one go:


• SELECT column_x, column_y, column_z
FROM table_a;
Fetching data by columns
• You might not know which columns you need to use in your
analysis, in which case you can select all columns in a table:

• SELECT *
FROM table_a;

• Some datasets have ugly column names, fix this by


assigning an alias to a column when selecting:

• SELECT ho#r%iblena8e AS new_column_name


FROM table_a;
Class Exercise 1
Filtering rows with the WHERE clause
• The next condition we might wish to impose on the
data we fetch is one that filters the rows selected:

• SELECT column_a, column_b


FROM table_name
WHERE column_a = x;

• Too many results? Add a LIMIT to your queries:

• SELECT column_a, column_b


FROM table_name
WHERE column_a = x
LIMIT 10;
Logical operators
• The AND keyword separates conditions when BOTH
should be satisfied:

• WHERE (column_a = x) AND (column_b=y)

• The OR keyword separates conditions when either one


needs to be satisfied:

• WHERE (column_a = x) OR (column_b=y)

• The NOT keyword is used to negate a condition:

• WHERE (column_a = x) AND NOT (column_b=y)


Mathematical operators
• Similarly, you can use mathematical operators to filter rows

• The ‘>’ and ‘<’ operators are used for strict inequalities:

• WHERE numerical_column_a > 4

• The ‘>=’ and ‘<=’ operators are used for non-strict inequalities:

• WHERE numerical_column_a >= 4

• The ‘<>’ operator is used for ‘not equals’:

• WHERE numerical_column_a <> 4


Class Exercise 2
Some notes on syntax and structure
• Queries have a LEGO-like structure: they start with broad
selections of data and refine this selection more with each clause

• It is convention to capitalize SQL keywords:


• SELECT, FROM, WHERE, AND, OR

• Queries always end with a semicolon

• Be careful with using single quote marks for string columns


• WHERE population > 30000 v.s WHERE country = ‘Germany’
Some notes on terminology
• SQL has its own terminology, and its good to know it:
• Statements are instructions.
• Queries are a type of statement.
• Clauses are the LEGO brick questions.
• Predicates are true/false answers to clauses.
• Expressions are scalars or tables
Some notes on dialects
• SQL is a language. And languages have variants:
• Microsoft Server SQL
• Oracle Database
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL (the one taught in this course)

• There may be syntax discrepancies amongst variants


• For example, the LIMIT clause in MSSQL Server:

• SELECT TOP number column_name


FROM table_name
WHERE condition;
Class Exercise 3
End.
Thanks for coming!

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