Learning SQL on SQL Server 2005

Important Commands and Functions

ABS

Row-level function that returns an absolute value.

ALTER COLUMN

Command used to change a column’s size or type in a table.

ALTER TABLE

Command used to modify a table’s definition.

AND

Logical operator that, when used in a WHEREclause, means that both criteria have to be met for a row to be included in the result set.

ASC

Function used in ORDER BY to put a SQL result set in ascending order.

AVG

Aggregate function used to average a group of row values.

BETWEEN

An operator used to determine whether a value occurs within a given range of values (inclusive); used with a WHERE clause.

BIGINT

Integer data type that can store numbers from -263 to 263 - 1.

BINARY

Data type used to store strings of bits.

BIT

Data type that consumes only a single bit of storage.

CAST

Conversion function used to change a data type of a column within a query.

CEILING

Row-level function that returns the next larger integer.

CHAR(size )

Character data type used when the column length is known and unvarying.

CHARACTER

Data type used to store any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.

CHARINDEX

String function that returns the starting position of a specified pattern.

CHECK

Integrity constraint used to create bounds for a column value.

CONSTRAINTS

Restrictions that can be placed on values when creating database objects such as tables and views.

CONVERT

Conversion function used to explicitly convert to a given data type within in a query.

COUNT (*)

Function used to count ...