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Practical SQL: A Beginner's Guide to Storytelling with Data

PracticalSQL by Anthony DeBarros focuses on learning SQL (Structured Query Language) to find the story your data tells, using the open-source database PostgreSQL and the pgAdmin interface as primary tools. This book aims to serve new programmers as well as people with some SQL experience who'd like to go deeper.

Practical SQL is available in PDF, .mobi, .epub, and classic print formats.

Questions? Feel free to email practicalsqlbook@gmail.com

What's Here

Code: All SQL code or command-line listings from each chapter, organized in chapter folders.

Data: CSV files for you to import, also organized by chapter. NOTE! See the warning below about opening CSV files in Excel and text editors in the section on Getting the Code and Data.

Exercises: The "Try It Yourself" questions and answers for each chapter, listed separately. Try working through the questions before peeking at the answers!

FAQ, Updates, and Errata: Answers to frequently asked questions, updates, and corrections are noted at faq-updates-errata.md.

Resources: Updates to the book's Appendix on Additional PostgreSQL Resources at resources.md.

Chapters

  • Chapter 1: Creating Your First Database and Table
  • Chapter 2: Beginning Data Exploration with SELECT
  • Chapter 3: Understanding Data Types
  • Chapter 4: Importing and Exporting Data
  • Chapter 5: Basic Math and Stats with SQL
  • Chapter 6: Joining Tables in a Relational Database
  • Chapter 7: Table Design That Works for You
  • Chapter 8: Extracting Information by Grouping and Summarizing
  • Chapter 9: Inspecting and Modifying Data
  • Chapter 10: Statistical Functions In SQL
  • Chapter 11: Working With Dates and Times
  • Chapter 12: Advanced Query Techniques
  • Chapter 13: Mining Text to Find Meaningful Data
  • Chapter 14: Analyzing Spatial Data with PostGIS
  • Chapter 15: Saving Time with Views, Functions, and Triggers
  • Chapter 16: Using PostgreSQL from the Command Line
  • Chapter 17: Maintaining Your Database
  • Chapter 18: Identifying and Telling the Story Behind Your Data
  • Appendix: Additional PostgreSQL Resources

Getting the Code and Data on Your Computer

Non-GitHub Users

You can obtain all the code and data at once by downloading this repository as a .zip file. To do that:

  • Select the Clone or Download button at top right.
  • Select Download ZIP
  • Unzip the file on your computer. Place it in a directory that's easy to remember so you can reference it during the exercises that include importing data to PostgreSQL.

Warning about CSV files!: Opening CSV files with Excel could lead to data loss. Excel will remove leading zeros from numbers that are intended to be stored as text, such as zip codes. If you wish to view the contents of a CSV file, only do so with a plain-text editor and be careful not to save the file in an encoding other than UTF-8 (e.g., Notepad.exe on Windows defaults to ANSI).

GitHub Users

GitHub users may want to clone the repository locally and occasionally perform a git pull to receive any updates.