Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

I already had the previous version but am even happier with the new one. If you are working across different versions of SQL (eg my background is Oracle but I am am writing SQL against DB2) this is really good comparator of the SQL variants.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

SQL Pocket Guide 3rd edition, by jonathan Gennick

Is just as it states a pocket guide. The content of the book is setup in a way that it is easy to find what you are looking for. It gives you examples in Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL, SQL Server and MySQL. It is a helpfull tool to give you the syntax you are looking for.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

Jonathan Gennick's SQL Pocket Guide is a seamless guide any Database Admin or developer, expert or beginner alike, should have in their IT toolbox. I recall when I was in the university; I picked up a "learn SQL in 24 hours" book as a supplementary to our curriculum book. Had I had this pocket guide then, I would have most certainly struggled less. Most recently I been developing .Net applications to a Pervasive SQL Database, and even with years of Microsoft SQL Server experience, this reference book has been on my side.
SQL is a platform independent database language, this guide will provide guidance and examples for Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL. You can also download code sample for all the mentioned platforms. Moreover, the organization of the book will indicate platform specifics, for instance, Data types spans several pages to distinguish between the various database platforms. The book is structured in alphabetical order by commands, this makes it easier for when you know you want to write a UNION but don't remember the syntax, you're sure to find it towards the end of the book. At times it may seem there are superfluous references to databases you don't work with, nonetheless, it is a Pocket Book primarily for reference and I won't hesitate in recommending it.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

The SQL Pocket Guide (3rd edition) by Jonathan Gennick (O'Reilly, 2010) is a must have for the database butterfly. I move among several DBMS on an almost daily basis. Once in a while I need a refresh on how one flavor of SQL differs from another. In comes the Pocket Guide. The Guide covers the latest versions of DB2, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. Gennick points out where commands and syntax vary from one platform to another and which commands are unique to certain platforms or versions. Examples of where these differences are tricky and where this book comes in handy are in areas like date/time and number conversion. This Guide is a short, abbreviated reference text which doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive reference. For comprehensive you will definitely want the SQL in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)).

While great for quick reference it is not intended to be a textbook. It can certainly be used as a refresher and has nice, short explanations of each command together with the examples. To find commands you will really want to already have an idea of what you are looking for and will need the table of contents and the index. If you are using an ebook format the search capability makes it an even handier reference text.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this text by the publisher for review.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

SQL Pocket Guide is exactly that, a small guide to most things SQL. You won't find a lot of background or extraneous content. Instead you'll get good examples of SQL syntax for nearly every SQL command supported by PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server.

I've been using this book daily at work, and while it doesn't officially support the SQL database engine we use, I've found it to be most helpful. This isn't the type of book you'd sit down and read. It is meant to be a reference, but I find the content to be interesting enough that I often read about an extra command or two after the command I was looking for.

Don't buy this book (at least not first) if you are new to SQL. You need a working knowledge of SQL and relational databases to make the most of this. But if you do work with SQL on even a semi-regular basis I really recommend it.

The only thing I'd like to see changed is adding support for SQLite. It is, after all, by numbers of installations, the most popular SQL engine in the world. Plus it is the one I prefer to use for most of my projects. Still much of the content is applicable, but it may take some trial-and-error to find the precise syntax.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

Pretty much a 'cookbook', is why I decided to review this book, being a big fan of other O'Reilly cookbooks. I am not one to want to read up on basics when you have to skip pages and chapters. With a reference book like SQL Pocket Guide, the author does a great job with this third-edition in dividing the chapters according to function and purpose of a task, from trying to remember how to do the different types of JOINS, to DateTime conversions working with Cubes.

Jonathan Gennick doesnt waffle on, he provides a brief introduction to the function, then gives you a usage example, and usually an expected results output. This reference text is great for students or part-time developers, as well as even the more intermediary-level ones, as it provides all the chapters and content for most of the tasks one would need to do on SQL, as far as PL/SQL goes, but perhaps one would need a more vendor-specific book for vendor-specific tasks, such as when working with Oracle or MySQL. Jonathan does provide some footnotes on specific quirks that certain vendor-databases do, such as Oracle supporing some proprietary CONNECT BY syntax if it means the reader would be able to tap into doing something thats more powerful, even if it's not applicable across all the other databases.

Overall I am happy with this book and for me the generic SQL book suffices, as I don't tend to do many SQL administration tasks, so having access to the neat and powerful SQL Querying is good enough for me. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who would need to work with SQL, at a casual or more regular periods.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

SQL Pocket Guide is a way of getting to know the SQL language on a variety of common platforms. You quickly get to know each keyword and the output you should expect. You will not, however, learn the "best" way to write SQL code.

Gennick in this third edition covers Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgresSQL keywords; some in depth some with "see your vendor's documentation". His overview is similar to what I would expect to get from a User Group lecture or a one day class at a University. If you are new to SQL code you should be able to understand keywords meanings and their usage.

The layout of chapters is by subject and then by keyword, so that you learn what SELECT, TIMESTAMP, and INSERT do. Gennick informs you of vendor differences but there is not a summery section. Some areas like date and time would make such a table nearly unusable as "Datetime support varies wildly amount platforms; commonality is virtually nonexistent." SQL Pocket Guide is a good overview of the SQL language for the most common vendors.

Reviewed as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

The SQL Pocket Guide isn't a mandatory book to have in your desk because you can always take a look at good documentation from a database vendor, but the more databases you need to code against it, the more you will appreciate having it close to quickly find the information you need to resume your work. That is, when you read this book, you skip a lot of specifics about each database engine to concentrate in the practical aspects of SQL programming.

For those who have a hard copy, the organization of the book will turn out to be very useful, since every section name matches common practices of SQL. Some sections, like the ones dedicated to SELECT, Pivoting, and Joins, shine for including a concise and clear description of the concept at hand. Other sections like those discussing regular expressions, window (olap) functions, date and time functions, and data type conversions, will well be worth the cost of the book, since they merge all the know-how's required to use these (ubiquitous) features in a couple of pages.

I can't conclude my review without mentioning that in the process of reading it I found a few minor errors, albeit that fact, I think the purpose of the author to fit a great amount of information regarding the five major database engines in a short guide, has been achieved.

I rate this book with four stars and I would recommend it to anyone working actively on SQL, especially if the domain of work involves more than one database vendor.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

The SQL Pocket Guide isn't a mandatory book to have in your desk because you can always take a look at good documentation from a database vendor, but the more databases you need to code against it, the more you will appreciate having it close to quickly find the information you need to resume your work. That is, when you read this book, you skip a lot of specifics about each database engine to concentrate in the practical aspects of SQL programming.

For those who have a hard copy, the organization of the book will turn out to be very useful, since every section name matches common practices of SQL. Some sections, like the ones dedicated to SELECT, Pivoting, and Joins, shine for including a concise and clear description of the concept at hand. Other sections like those discussing regular expressions, window (olap) functions, date and time functions, and data type conversions, will well be worth the cost of the book, since they merge all the know-how's required to use these (ubiquitous) features in a couple of pages.

I can't conclude my review without mentioning that in the process of reading it I found a few minor errors, albeit that fact, I think the purpose of the author to fit a great amount of information regarding the five major database engines in a short guide, has been achieved.

I rate this book with four stars and I would recommend it to anyone working actively on SQL, especially if the domain of work involves more than one database vendor.

Comments about O'Reilly Media SQL Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition:

The SQL Pocket Guide is a cross-platform reference guide for SQL standard syntax, covering Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

Surely this book was quite an undertaking for the author. The book provides a good amount of platform-specific detail when necessary. For example, commendable is the inclusion of the importance of SET XACT_ABORT {ON|OFF} on SQL Server transactions, or caveats about InnoDB vs non-transactional tables in MySQL. This is good detail that shows the author clearly has experience and insight which provide value to the reader.

Regularly, the author breaks a topic down by platform, which is helpful in navigation. While the book provides syntax and examples on standard ANSI SQL statements in each platform, it avoids comparing and contrasting usage except when necessary. This is a good thing, I can't see why the author need to include full cross references of simple syntax.

Sometimes though, detail is lacking. For example, the LAG and LEAD functions are implicitly described as supported by SQL Server when they are not. This isn't necessarily errata, but is potentially confusing.

What would be considered errata is the incorrect note that SQL Server supports the TRIM string function. This wasn't the only errata I found and submitted in a few hours of skipping back and forth through the book, as one would typically make use of it.