Chapter 9: Using Operators and Expressions in Access
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding operators in expressions
Creating complex queries
Building queries with simple criteria
Using multiple criteria in a query
Composing complex query criteria
In the preceding chapter, you created queries using selected fields from one or more tables. You also sorted the data and set criteria to limit the results of a query. This chapter focuses on using operators and expressions to calculate information, compare values, and display data in a different format — using queries to build examples.
This chapter uses queries to demonstrate the use of operators and functions, but the principles in this chapter's exercises apply anywhere operators and expressions appear in Access.
On the Web
The starting database for this walkthrough, Chapter09.accdb, can be downloaded from this book's website.
Introducing Operators
Operators let you compare values, put text strings together, format data, and perform a wide variety of tasks. You use operators to instruct Access to perform a specific action against one or more operands. The combination of operators and operands is known as an expression.
Note
You'll see the term evaluate a lot in this chapter. When you present Access with a field, expression, variable, and so on, Access evaluates the item and (internally) represents the item as a value. It's very important to compose expressions in such a way that Access evaluates them as we expect. If Access incorrectly ...
