Oracle Database 12c: SQL Fundamentals

Overview
Learning the SQL language is one of the most basic tasks required for the use of a relational database. SQL proficiency is essential for business users, database developers, database administrators and any other database professional. This course introduces the basics of the SQL language and the Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). One will become acquainted with the differences in the working environment between a traditional on-premise database installation and the Oracle database service cloud-computing platform. This course also considers intermediate-level SQL topics such as writing database queries using the SQL-99 syntax and exploiting the power of built-in functions that extend the capabilities of SQL.

Since SQL is an industry standard language, many of the topics presented and many of the skills you will acquire will be applicable to other database platforms, such as Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, the open-source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL, and others.

This course takes a unique approach to SQL training in that it incorporates data modeling theory, relational database theory, graphical depictions of theoretical concepts and numerous examples of actual SQL syntax into one learning vehicle.

You will learn how to complete of an application schema definition by creating database objects such as relational views, sequences, synonyms, indexes and others to compliment the table definitions. The crucial topic of data integrity and how this is protected using declarative constraints is covered.

With this course we will also leave the idyllic realm of the learning environment and begin to explore such practical real-world considerations as database object security and database performance.

Target Audience
The target audience for this course is all Oracle professionals, both business and systems professionals. Among the specific groups for whom this course will be helpful are:
• Business and non-IT professionals
• Application designers and database developers
• Business Intelligence (BI) analysts and consumers
• Database administrators
• Web server administrators

Certification
This course and the subsequent ones within this series consider subjects applicable to certification as an Oracle Database Certified SQL Expert. The topics considered are included within “Exam 1Z0-047: Oracle Database: SQL
Certified Expert”.

Objectives
The first portion of this course considers the logical models upon which a relational database is based and the various configurations and environments in which you may work with the Oracle database. The next segment focuses on the actual SQL syntax for writing database queries. You will begin with the simplest of queries and then proceed onto moderately complex query scenarios. Finally, this textbook covers the DDL, DML and transaction control portions of the SQL language that allow one to create, maintain and manipulate application database objects and application data.

This course also demonstrates how one can build intermediate-level and even advanced queries using the SQL-99 join syntax, along with other advanced query topics. It also considers both ANSI/ISO and native Oracle SQL built-in functions and the tremendous power that functions offer to SQL operations. It is difficult for one to use SQL within a production environment without liberal use of the built-in functions. Among many other tasks, the built-in functions allow one to move beyond the use of primitive date data types and values to include timestamps, time zones and to address other realistic date and time challenges. Finally attention is given to how one completes an application schema by creating database objects to compliment table definitions. One cannot implement a production database application simply with table and column definitions but needs to create and manage views, indexes, constraints and other object types.

Contents

RELATIONAL DATABASES & DATA MODELS
•      ABOUT DATA MODELS
•      ABOUT THE RELATIONAL MODEL
•      THE ELECTRONICS DATA MODEL
•      ABOUT THE RELATIONAL DBMS

SELECTION & SETUP OF THE DATABASE INTERFACE
•      CONSIDERING AVAILABLE TOOLS
•      SELECTING THE APPROPRIATE TOOL
•      ORACLE NET DATABASE CONNECTIONS
•      ORACLE PAAS DATABASE CONNECTIONS
•      SETUP SQL DEVELOPER
•      SETUP SQL*PLUS
•      SETUP JDEVELOPER

USING THE DATABASE INTERFACE
•      ABOUT BIND & SUBSTITUTION VARIABLES
•      USING SQL DEVELOPER
•      USING SQL*PLUS

INTRODUCTION TO THE SQL LANGUAGE
•      ABOUT THE SQL LANGUAGE
•      CHARACTERISTICS OF SQL
•      INTRODUCING SQL USING SELECT
•      SQL RULES

THE SELECT STATEMENT
•      THE SELECT STATEMENT
•      DISTINCT / UNIQUE Keyword
•      USING ALIAS NAMES

RESTRICTING RESULTS WITH THE WHERE CLAUSE
•      ABOUT LOGICAL OPERATORS
•      EQUALITY OPERATOR
•      BOOLEAN OPERATORS
•      REGEXP_LIKE()
•      IN OPERATOR

SORTING DATA WITH THE ORDER BY CLAUSE
•      ABOUT THE ORDER BY CLAUSE
•      MULTIPLE COLUMN SORTS
•      SPECIFY THE SORT SEQUENCE
•      ABOUT NULL VALUES WITHIN SORTS
•      USING COLUMN ALIASES

PSEUDO COLUMNS, FUNCTIONS & TOP-N QUERIES
•      ROWID PSEUDO COLUMN
•      ORA_ROWSCN PSEUDO COLUMN
•      ROWNUM PSEUDO COLUMN
•      ABOUT THE BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS
•      SYSDATE
•      USER & UID
•      SESSIONTIMEZONE Function
•      USING THE DUAL TABLE
•      ROW LIMITING & TOP-N QUERIES
•      FETCH FIRST x ROWS ONLY Clause
•      OFFSET x ROWS Clause
•      FETCH … PERCENT Clause
•      The WITH TIES Option

JOINING TABLES
•      ABOUT JOINS
•      INNER JOIN
•      REFLEXIVE JOIN
•      NON-KEY JOIN
•      OUTER JOIN

USING THE SET OPERATORS
•      ABOUT THE SET OPERATORS
•      SQL SET OPERATOR EXAMPLES
•      UNION Example
•      INTERSECT Example
•      MINUS Example
•      UNION ALL

SUMMARY FUNCTIONS
USING SUB-QUERIES
•      FINDING DATA WITH SUB-QUERIES
•      STANDARD SUB-QUERIES
•      CORRELATED SUB-QUERIES
•      The EXISTS Operator

AGGREGATING DATA WITHIN GROUPS
•      ABOUT SUMMARY GROUPS
•      FIND GROUPS WITHIN THE TABLES
•      SELECT DATA FROM THE BASE TABLES
•      SELECT GROUPS FROM THE RESULTS

USE DDL TO CREATE & MANAGE TABLES
•      CREATE TABLE STATEMENT
•      COLUMN DATA TYPES
•      NOT NULL
•      DEFAULT
•      DESCRIBE
•      ALTER TABLE STATEMENT
•      DROP TABLE STATEMENT
•      TABLE DDL USING SQL DEVELOPER
•      ALTER USER STATEMENT
•      ALTER SESSION STATEMENT
•      NLS_LANGUAGE
•      NLS_DATE

USE DML TO MANIPULATE DATA
•      THE INSERT STATEMENT
•      THE DELETE STATEMENT
•      THE UPDATE STATEMENT
•      ABOUT TRANSACTIONS
•      TRANSACTION ROLLBACK
•      TRANSACTION COMMIT
•      TRANSACTION SAVEPOINT
•      THE SET TRANSACTION STATEMENT
•      SET TRANSACTION READ ONLY Statement Rules

UNDERSTANDING THE DATA MODELS
•      THE COMPANY DATA MODEL
•      THE ELECTRONICS DATA MODEL

ABOUT THE SQL-99 STANDARD
•      SQL-92 & SQL-99
•      CROSS JOINS
•      NATURAL JOINS
•      INNER JOINS
•      Implicit INNER JOIN
•      OUTER JOINS
•      ANTI JOINS
•      NAMED SUB-QUERIES

ENHANCING GROUPS WITH ROLLUP & CUBE
•      USING ROLLUP
•      The GROUPING() Function
•      USING CUBE

USING THE CASE EXPRESSION
SQL FUNCTIONS: CHARACTER HANDLING
•      WHAT ARE THE SQL FUNCTIONS?
•      STRING FORMATTING FUNCTIONS
•      UPPER(), LOWER() Example
•      INITCAP() Example
•      CHARACTER CODES FUNCTIONS
•      CHR(), ASCII() Examples
•      PAD & TRIM FUNCTIONS
•      RPAD() Example
•      RTRIM() Example
•      TRIM() Example
•      STRING MANIPULATION FUNCTIONS
•      DECODE() Example
•      SUBSTR() Example
•      INSTR() Example
•      TRANSLATE() Example
•      REPLACE() Example
•      STRING COMPARISON FUNCTIONS
•      LEAST() Example
•      PHONETIC SEARCH FUNCTION
•      SOUNDEX() Example

SQL FUNCTIONS: NUMERIC HANDLING
•      ABOUT THE NUMERIC DATA FUNCTIONS
•      GREATEST() Example
•      ABS() Example
•      ROUND() Example
•      TRUNC() Example
•      SIGN() Example
•      TO_NUMBER() Example & Data Type Conversions
•      NULL VALUES FUNCTIONS
•      NVL() & NVL2() Function
•      NVL() Example (Character)
•      NVL() Example (Numeric Loss Of Data)
•      NVL() Example (Numeric Output)
•      NVL2() Example
•      COALESCE() Function
•      NULLIF() Function

SQL FUNCTIONS: DATE HANDLING
•      DATE FORMATTING FUNCTIONS
•      TO_CHAR() & TO_DATE() Format Patterns
•      TO_CHAR() Examples
•      TO_DATE() Examples
•      EXTRACT() Example
•      DATE ARITHMETIC FUNCTIONS
•      MONTHS_BETWEEN() Example
•      ADD_MONTHS() Example
•      LAST_DAY() Example
•      NEXT_DAY() Example
•      TRUNC(), ROUND() Dates Example
•      NEW_TIME() Example
•      About V$TIMEZONE_NAMES
•      CAST() FUNCTION & TIME ZONES

DATABASE OBJECTS: ABOUT DATABASE OBJECTS
•      ABOUT DATABASE OBJECTS
•      ABOUT SCHEMAS
•      MAKING OBJECT REFERENCES

DATABASE OBJECTS: RELATIONAL VIEWS
•      ABOUT RELATIONAL VIEWS
•      THE CREATE VIEW STATEMENT
•      WHY USE VIEWS?
•      ACCESSING VIEWS WITH DML
•      MAINTAINING VIEW DEFINITIONS
•      ALTER VIEW
•      DROP VIEW
•      DDL Using SQL Developer

DATABASE OBJECTS: INDEXES
•      ABOUT INDEXES
•      CREATE & DROP INDEX STATEMENTS
•      INDEXES & PERFORMANCE
•      DATA DICTIONARY STORAGE

DATABASE OBJECTS: CREATING OTHER OBJECTS
•      ABOUT SEQUENCES
•      Referencing NEXTVAL
•      Referencing CURRVAL
•      Within The DEFAULT Clause
•      ALTER SEQUENCE & DROP SEQUENCE
•      ALTER SEQUENCE
•      DROP SEQUENCE
•      ABOUT IDENTITY COLUMNS
•      CREATE TABLE … GENERATED AS IDENTITY
•      ALTER TABLE … GENERATED AS IDENTITY
•      START WITH LIMIT VALUE
•      ALTER TABLE … DROP IDENTITY
•      ABOUT SYNONYMS
•      CREATE & DROP SYNONYM Statements
•      CREATE SYNONYM
•      DROP SYNONYM
•      Public Vs. Private Synonyms
•      CREATE SCHEMA AUTHORIZATION

DATABASE OBJECTS: OBJECT MANAGEMENT USING DDL
•      THE RENAME STATEMENT
•      TABLESPACE PLACEMENT
•      CREATE TABLE … TABLESPACE
•      THE COMMENT STATEMENT
•      THE TRUNCATE TABLE STATEMENT

DATABASE OBJECTS: SECURITY
•      ABOUT OBJECT SECURITY
•      GRANT OBJECT PRIVILEGES
•      REVOKE OBJECT PRIVILEGES
•      OBJECT PRIVILEGES & SQL DEVELOPER

DATA INTEGRITY USING CONSTRAINTS
•      ABOUT CONSTRAINTS
•      NOT NULL CONSTRAINT
•      NOT NULL Example
•      CHECK CONSTRAINT
•      UNIQUE CONSTRAINT
•      PRIMARY KEY CONSTRAINT
•      REFERENCES CONSTRAINT
•      ON DELETE CASCADE Example
•      ON DELETE SET NULL Example
•      CONSTRAINTS ON EXISTING TABLES