Accessing and Changing Relational Data Overview
Accessing and Changing Relational Data contains information about how you retrieve data from SQL Server tables and modify data in SQL Server tables. SQL Server applications typically work with SQL Server data in one of two ways:
- Applications use database Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) such as ADO, OLE DB, or ODBC to execute Transact-SQL statements that work with SQL Server data in the form of tabular result sets.
- Internet applications use Universal Resource Locators (URLs) or the ADO or OLE DB APIs to execute either XPath queries or Transact-SQL statements that work with SQL Server data in the form of XML documents.
Accessing and Changing Relational Data deals with fundamental aspects of building and executing Transact-SQL statements and processing results in the form of relational (or tabular) result sets. For more information about using XPath queries or Transact-SQL statements that work with XML documents, see Overview of XML and Internet Access.
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Query Tools and Programming Interfaces | Describes the different classes of tools used to work with SQL Server. Outlines how Transact-SQL interfaces with utilities and database APIs. |
| Transact-SQL Syntax Elements | Describes the primary syntax elements used in Transact-SQL statements. |
| Accessing and Changing Data Fundamentals | Describes fundamental issues that SQL Server applications must address, but which are not specific to any Transact-SQL statement:
Choosing a database |
| Query Fundamentals | Descirbes the fundamental processes of building Transact-SQL statements. Describes the main clauses used in the SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE statements:
Select list |
| Advanced Query Concepts | Describes advanced concepts such as:
Using aggregate functions |
| Modifying Data | Describes the methods for inserting new rows, and updating or deleting existing rows. |
| Transactions | Describes how several data modification statements can be grouped in a transaction. |
| Cursors | Describes how SELECT statements always return a set of rows, but applications sometimes need to go through the result set one row at a time. Cursors support processing a result set one row, or a block of rows, at a time. |
| Locking | Describes how SQL Server prevents multiple users from modifying the same data at the same time. |
| Distributed Queries | Describes how to code Transact-SQL statements that reference data on separate instances of SQL Server, or even in non-SQL Server OLE DB or ODBC data sources. |
| Full-text Search | Describes how to use more powerful text search functionality than is supported in SQL-92, and include files outside a database in the text searches. |