Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Internals

Get a detailed look at the internal architecture of T-SQL with this comprehensive programming reference. Database developers and administrators get best practices, expert techniques, and code samples to master the intricacies of this programming language—solving complex problems with real-world solutions.

Discover how to:

• Work with T-SQL and CLR user-defined functions, stored procedures, and triggers.
• Handle transactions, concurrency, and error handling.
• Efficiently use temporary objects, including temporary tables, table variables, and table expressions.
• Evaluate when to use set-based programming techniques and when to use cursors.
• Work with dynamic SQL in an efficient and secure manner.
• Treat date- and time-related data in a robust manner.
• Develop CLR user-defined types and learn about temporal support in the relational model.
• Use XML and XQuery and implement a dynamic schema solution.
• Work with spatial data using the new geometry and geography types and spatial indexes.
• Track access and changes to data using extended events, SQL Server Audit, change tracking, and change data capture.
• Use Service Broker for controlled asynchronous processing in database applications.

All the book’s code samples will be available for download from the companion Web site.

Gain a solid understanding of T-SQL—and write better queries

Master the fundamentals of Transact-SQL—and develop your own code for querying and modifying data in Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012. Led by a SQL Server expert, you’ll learn the concepts behind T-SQL querying and programming, and then apply your knowledge with exercises in each chapter. Once you understand the logic behind T-SQL, you’ll quickly learn how to write effective code—whether you’re a programmer or database administrator.

Discover how to:

• Work with programming practices unique to T-SQL
• Create database tables and define data integrity
• Query multiple tables using joins and subqueries
• Simplify code and improve maintainability with table expressions
• Implement insert, update, delete, and merge data modification strategies
• Tackle advanced techniques such as window functions, pivoting and grouping sets
• Control data consistency using isolation levels, and mitigate deadlocks and blocking
• Take T-SQL to the next level with programmable objects

Extend your programming skills with a comprehensive study of the key features of SQL Server 2008. Delve into the new core capabilities, get practical guidance from expert developers, and put their code samples to work. This is a must-read for Microsoft .NET and SQL Server developers who work with data access—at the database, business logic, or presentation levels.

Discover how to:

• Query complex data with powerful Transact-SQL enhancements
• Use new, non-relational features: hierarchical tables, native file streaming, and geospatial capabilities
• Exploit XML inside the database to design XML-aware applications
• Consume and deliver your data using Microsoft LINQ, Entity Framework, and data binding
• Implement database-level encryption and server auditing
• Build and maintain data warehouses
• Use Microsoft Excel to build front ends for OLAP cubes, and MDX to query them
• Integrate data mining into applications quickly and effectively

Get code samples on the Web.

Tackle the toughest set-based querying and query tuning problems—guided by an author team with in-depth, inside knowledge of T-SQL. Deepen your understanding of architecture and internals—and gain practical approaches and advanced techniques to optimize your code’s performance.

Discover how to:

• Move from procedural programming to the language of sets and logic
• Optimize query tuning with a top-down methodology
• Assess algorithmic complexity to predict performance
• Compare data-aggregation techniques, including new grouping sets
• Manage data modification—insert, delete, update, merge—for performance
• Write more efficient queries against partitioned tables
• Work with graphs, trees, hierarchies, and recursive queries
• Plus—Use pure-logic puzzles to sharpen your problem-solving skills

If you're a programmer or database administrator who uses SQL in your day-to-day work, this popular pocket guide is the ideal on-the-job reference. You'll find many examples that address the language's complexity, along with key aspects of SQL used in IBM DB2 Release 9.7, MySQL 5.1, Oracle Database 11g Release 2, PostgreSQL 9.0, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release 2.

SQL Pocket Guide describes how these database systems implement SQL syntax for querying, managing transactions, and making changes to data. It also shows how the systems use SQL functions, regular expression syntax, and type conversion functions and formats.

All example SQL statements in this book execute against a set of tables, with data that you can quickly download. The third edition covers important database changes, including:

• Oracle's support of the recursive WITH syntax, and addition of PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators
• Functions new to Oracle, such as LISTAGG, NTH_VALUE, and more
• PostgreSQL’s support of recursive WITH and some window functions
• DB2 syntax and datatypes, some compatible with Oracle
• MySQL features such as the TIMESTAMP type and the TO_SECONDS function