SQL Hacks

Credits

About the Authors

Andrew Cumming is the zookeeper at http://sqlzoo.net and http://progzoo.net. He maintains a collection of SQL engines and programming compilers and invites all-comers to play with them. A graduate of the University of Sussex, he taught mathematics at Southend High School for Boys, before completing a postgraduate degree at Imperial College, London. He worked as a contract programmer for several years before taking up his current post at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dr. Gordon Russell is a computing lecturer at Napier University, Scotland, teaching a variety of topics including databases, Linux, and networking. He has built a number of technology-driven, web-based online learning environments. These include http://db.grussell.org, which automatically grades SQL assessments, and http://linuxzoo.net, which offers online users root access to virtual Linux servers. He holds a BSc (honors) and a Ph.D. from the University of Strathclyde. He is a Cisco academy instructor and also works on commercial contracts as a database designer and web site developer.

Contributors

The following people contributed their hacks, writing, and inspiration to this book:

• Rudy Limeback is an SQL consultant with close to 20 years of experience using SQL in one database system or another. He is located in Toronto, but thanks to the miracle that is the Internet, he consults for clients all over the wide world. You can find more information on SQL and web development on Rudy’s web site, http://r937.com.

• Fredrik Ålund is a senior developer of the Mimer SQL DBMS at Mimer Information Technology. Mimer is a relational database pioneer, whose first customer installation occurred in 1978 and has since been followed by many enterprise customers all over the world. Mimer is yet again a database pioneer, this time by providing full-fledged relational database technology to the embedded and mobile markets. Mimer is also taking active part in the standardization of SQL as a member of the ISO SQL-standardization committee ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32, WorkGroup 3, Database Languages. You can download free development versions of Mimer SQL from http://www.mimer.com.

• Troels Arvin lives with his wife and son in Copenhagen, Denmark. He went half-way through medical school before realizing that computer science was the thing to do. He has since worked in the web, bioinformatics, and telecommunications businesses. Troels is keen on database technology and maintains a slowly growing web page on how databases implement the SQL standard: http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our editor, Brian Jepson, for his hard work and exceptional skill; his ability to separate the wheat from the chaff was invaluable. We are grateful to Alan Beaulieu, author of Learning SQL and Mastering Oracle SQL (both from O’Reilly), for his time, energy, and technical insight. In addition, the critical reviewing provided by Sheeri Kritzer (http://sheeri.com) has proved to be exceptionally useful, and she has had a significant impact on many of the hacks published here. With the help of these people this book has been greatly improved.

Special thanks to Guiti and Mary for their encouragement and support.