SQL-99 Complete, Really [Paperback]

Peter Gulutzan (Author), Trudy Pelzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

SQL is the dominant mode of database programming used in industry. This text contains descriptions of the SQL3 standards (released in Summer 1999) for syntax, data structures and retrieval processes of SQL databases. It is an example-based reference manual, and includes all of the CLI functions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book tells you everything you want to know (and some stuff you don't) about SQL ... provides easy-to-understand tips ... " PC Techniques, on the authors' previous book, Optimizing SQL -- Publisher Comments

"This book tells you everything you want to know --and some stuff you don't- about SQL provides easy-to-understand tips " -- PC Techniques, on the authors' previous book, Optimizing SQL

About the Author

Peter Gulutzan and Trudy Pelzer are the principals of Ocelot Computing Services in Alberta, Canada. They provide SQL database software products and consulting services. They each have more than a decade of experience working with SQL and have SQL produced both SQL-89 and SQL-92 versions of a DBMS for Windows systems. They have collaborated on two previous books Optimizing SQL and Optimizing C with Assembly Code.

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: CMP Books (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879305681
• ISBN-13: 978-0879305680
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #708,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very useful but sloppy and verbose, August 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: SQL-99 Complete, Really (Paperback)

If/when there is an SQL-99 edition of "SQL--The Standard Handbook" by Cannan & Otten, forget about this book. Cannan & Otten's book about SQL-92 is clearer and better organised. I'd have been lost in this book had I not read Cannan & Otten first.

Content editing is sloppy. For example, we learn on p62 that unary + changes the sign of an operand. On p67, we are given an improved arithmetic expression which computes something completely different from its original. On p61, we are given a recipe for rounding that doesn't work for negative numbers. And so it goes.

One thing Gulutzan & Pelzer provide but Cannan & Otten didn't is a free SQL system. I have accounts/access to seven different machines with five different CPUs and six different operating systems, but the software does not run on any of them, so I cannot review the software.

Neither, for that matter, do the HTML files work. In a typical piece of sloppiness, the file names on the disc are like "appb.htm" but the references inside the files are like "appB.html". I had to copy all the HTML files and rename them before they were browsable.

In a book this size internal cross-references need to be very good. Modern SGML-based publishing technology makes it easy to produce excellent internal links. This book could be better, and as it is a reference book, it really should be better.

A trap for young players: in 1997 I found that a major vendor who claimed SQL 92 conforrmance was being economical with the truth. They conformed to the SQL 89 subset of SQL 92, but on fairly basic things like VARCHAR fields, did not conform. It will be a while before we can rely on some of the new stuff in SQL 99 being available. Just because there is something useful described in the book, don't expect to be able to use it yet. The advice about what is in the Core and what is not is *VERY* useful.

Producing this book must have been an enormous amount of work, and despite my whinging, it will save its readers an enormous amount of work trying to make sense of a rather prolix and complex standard.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best technical manual, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: SQL-99 Complete, Really (Paperback)

SQL-99 book has been a great help to me. It is the best technical manual i've read over the last years. Without it i could not have done my coding.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best SQL standard reference I've seen, May 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: SQL-99 Complete, Really (Paperback)

SQL-99 Complete, Really is a suburb reference for all things standard about relational databases. It should be a required reference for any developer serious about relational databases.

Even for those who have just begun to delve into the complexities of database implementation, the clear language of this book explains the vocabulary and structure "under the hood" of database development. It's claim to completeness seems well justified and will not disappoint the technical veteran. It clearly explains the SQL standard, its history, context and usage. There are complete explanations of basic database concepts, the use of SQL and the call-level interface (CLI) that is the basis for ODBC and any number of middleware applications and database engines.

In our current forrest of database technologies, Gulutzan and Pelzer have given us the rosetta stone for unraveling and understanding it all. Every developer in SQL, ODBC, or any database claiming to be relational, will find clarity and understanding here.

It is a welcome addition to my library and has already improved the quality of database work coming from my company.