Table of Contents

The Art of SQL
By Stéphane Faroult, Peter Robson
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Publisher: O'Reilly
Pub Date: March 2006
Print ISBN-10: 0-596-00894-5
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-59-600894-9
Pages: 367

Table of Contents  | Index

		The Art of SQL
		Dedication
		Preface
			Why Another SQL Book?
			Audience
			Assumptions This Book Makes
			Contents of This Book
			Conventions Used in This Book
			Using Code Examples
			Comments and Questions
			Safari® Enabled
			Acknowledgments
		Chapter 1.  Laying Plans
			Section 1.1.  The Relational View of Data
			Section 1.2.  The Importance of Being Normal
			Section 1.3.  To Be or Not to Be, or to Be Null
			Section 1.4.  Qualifying Boolean Columns
			Section 1.5.  Understanding Subtypes
			Section 1.6.  Stating the Obvious
			Section 1.7.  The Dangers of Excess Flexibility
			Section 1.8.  The Difficulties of Historical Data
			Section 1.9.  Design and Performance
			Section 1.10.  Processing Flow
			Section 1.11.  Centralizing Your Data
			Section 1.12.  System Complexity
			Section 1.13.  The Completed Plans
		Chapter 2.  Waging War
			Section 2.1.  Query Identification
			Section 2.2.  Stable Database Connections
			Section 2.3.  Strategy Before Tactics
			Section 2.4.  Problem Definition Before Solution
			Section 2.5.  Stable Database Schema
			Section 2.6.  Operations Against Actual Data
			Section 2.7.  Set Processing in SQL
			Section 2.8.  Action-Packed SQL Statements
			Section 2.9.  Profitable Database Accesses
			Section 2.10.  Closeness to the DBMS Kernel
			Section 2.11.  Doing Only What Is Required
			Section 2.12.  SQL Statements Mirror Business Logic
			Section 2.13.  Program Logic into Queries
			Section 2.14.  Multiple Updates at Once
			Section 2.15.  Careful Use of User-Written Functions
			Section 2.16.  Succinct SQL
			Section 2.17.  Offensive Coding with SQL
			Section 2.18.  Discerning Use of Exceptions
		Chapter 3.  Tactical Dispositions
			Section 3.1.  The Identification of "Entry Points"
			Section 3.2.  Indexes and Content Lists
			Section 3.3.  Making Indexes Work
			Section 3.4.  Indexes with Functions and Conversions
			Section 3.5.  Indexes and Foreign Keys
			Section 3.6.  Multiple Indexing of the Same Columns
			Section 3.7.  System-Generated Keys
			Section 3.8.  Variability of Index Accesses
		Chapter 4.  Maneuvering
			Section 4.1.  The Nature of SQL
			Section 4.2.  Five Factors Governing the Art of SQL
			Section 4.3.  Filtering
		Chapter 5.  Terrain
			Section 5.1.  Structural Types
			Section 5.2.  The Conflicting Goals
			Section 5.3.  Considering Indexes as Data Repositories
			Section 5.4.  Forcing Row Ordering
			Section 5.5.  Automatically Grouping Data
			Section 5.6.  The Double-Edged Sword of Partitioning
			Section 5.7.  Partitioning and Data Distribution
			Section 5.8.  The Best Way to Partition Data
			Section 5.9.  Pre-Joining Tables
			Section 5.10.  Holy Simplicity
		Chapter 6.  The Nine Situations
			Section 6.1.  Small Result Set, Direct Specific Criteria
			Section 6.2.  Small Result Set, Indirect Criteria
			Section 6.3.  Small Intersection of Broad Criteria
			Section 6.4.  Small Intersection, Indirect Broad Criteria
			Section 6.5.  Large Result Set
			Section 6.6.  Self-Joins on One Table
			Section 6.7.  Result Set Obtained by Aggregation
			Section 6.8.  Simple or Range Searching on Dates
			Section 6.9.  Result Set Predicated on Absence of Data
		Chapter 7.  Variations in Tactics
			Section 7.1.  Tree Structures
			Section 7.2.  Representing Trees in an SQL Database
			Section 7.3.  Practical Implementation of Trees
			Section 7.4.  Walking a Tree with SQL
			Section 7.5.  Aggregating Values from Trees
		Chapter 8.  Weaknesses and Strengths
			Section 8.1.  Deceiving Criteria
			Section 8.2.  Abstract Layers
			Section 8.3.  Distributed Systems
			Section 8.4.  Dynamically Defined Search Criteria
		Chapter 9.  Multiple Fronts
			Section 9.1.  The Database Engine as a Service Provider
			Section 9.2.  Concurrent Data Changes
		Chapter 10.  Assembly of Forces
			Section 10.1.  Increasing Volumes
			Section 10.2.  Data Warehousing
		Chapter 11.  Stratagems
			Section 11.1.  Turning Data Around
			Section 11.2.  Querying with a Variable in List
			Section 11.3.  Aggregating by Range (Bands)
			Section 11.4.  Superseding a General Case
			Section 11.5.  Selecting Rows That Match Several Items in a List
			Section 11.6.  Finding the Best Match
			Section 11.7.  Optimizer Directives
		Chapter 12.  Employment of Spies
			Section 12.1.  The Database Is Slow
			Section 12.2.  The Components of Server Load
			Section 12.3.  Defining Good Performance
			Section 12.4.  Thinking in Business Tasks
			Section 12.5.  Execution Plans
			Section 12.6.  Using Execution Plans Properly
			Section 12.7.  What Really Matters?
		PHOTO CREDITS
		About the Author
		Index