SQL For Dummies®, 7th Edition

Chapter 15. Using SQL within Applications

Previous chapters address SQL statements mostly in isolation. For example, questions are asked about data, and SQL queries are developed that retrieve answers to the questions. This mode of operation, interactive SQL, is fine for discovering what SQL can do — but it's not how SQL is typically used.

Even though SQL syntax can be described as similar to that of English, it isn't an easy language to master. The overwhelming majority of computer users are not fluent in SQL — and you can reasonably assume that they never will be, even if this book is wildly successful. When a database question comes up, Joe User probably won't sit down at his terminal and enter an SQL SELECT statement to find the answer. Systems analysts and application developers are the people who are likely to be comfortable with SQL, and they typically don't make a career out of entering ad hoc queries into databases. Instead, they develop applications to make those queries.

Tip

If you plan to perform the same operation repeatedly, you shouldn't have to rebuild it every time from the console. Write an application to do the job and then run it as often as you like. SQL can be a part of an application, but when it is, it works a little differently than it does in an interactive mode.

SQL in an Application

In Chapter 2, SQL is presented to you as an incomplete programming language. To use SQL in an application, you have to combine it with a procedural language such as Visual Basic, ...