SAMS Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 24 Hours

Hour 14. Understanding SQL, the Language of Databases

In the previous hour, “An Introduction to Databases,” we examined, from a high-level perspective, what databases are and their purpose. We looked at installing MSDE and creating a database. We also saw how to create a database table and populate it with data via the Web Matrix Project.

Often we will want to retrieve information from a database and display it on an ASP.NET Web page. To be able to do this, we need to learn how to retrieve data from a database. In this hour we will examine Structured Query Language, or SQL (pronounced either “S-Q-L” or “see-quell”), the language used by all modern database systems for retrieving data. In addition to learning the general syntax of SQL, we'll examine ...