LESSON 7Molding Data with Built-in Functions

In this lesson we discuss functions. Functions in SQL enable you to perform feats such as determining the sum of a column, or converting all the characters of a string to uppercase. By the end of this lesson, you will understand and be able to use all the following:

• Aggregate functions

• Date and time functions

• Arithmetic functions

• Character functions

• Conversion functions

• Miscellaneous functions

These functions greatly increase your capability to manipulate the information you retrieved using the basic functions of SQL that were described earlier in the book. The first five aggregate functions, COUNT, SUM, AVG, MAX, and MIN, are defined in the ANSI standard. Most implementations of SQL have ...

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