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A Guide to the SQL Standard (Third Edition) by C J Date Highly Recommended

ISBN: 0-201-55822-X       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: ??pp       Price: £?

Categories:   database

Reviewed by Derek Jones in C Vu 6-4 (May 1994)

Starting out with an overview of the standard, which requires very little previous knowledge about databases, it goes on to cover each major topic in turn. Those of you wanting a more detailed introduction to the ins and outs of database theory, particularly the relational model, are strongly recommended to read 'An Introduction to Database Systems' 5th edition by C.J. Date.

At over 600 pages the official standard is bulky and not consistently put together (the draft SQL3 is over 900 pages). At just over 400 pages this book not only helps the reader to learn about the standard but tells us about prior art and upcoming issues in SQL3.

I particularly liked the various diversions into SQL standards terminology. In places this leaves something to be desired. Thankfully this book provides useful insights into what the committee intended.

Although it contains many examples it is not intended to teach how to use SQL. However, a decent programmer would certainly learn enough to be able to write simple SQL programs or be able to understand an existing program. In many ways a knowledge of the underlying relational database model is not needed to be able to write SQL programs, anymore than a knowledge of 2's complement and IEEE floating point represent-ations is needed to write a C program.

Another good reason for reading this book is to learn about the rationale behind many of the standard constructs. Authors often treat standards as being handed down from on high. It is always refreshing to be told why standards contain what they contain. This book should be on the shelf of any programmer, at any level, using SQL.