Accessing and Changing Database Data

Accessing and Changing Database Data deals with the fundamental aspects of building and executing Transact-SQL statements and processing results in the form of relational, or tabular, result sets.

The topics in this section provide information to help you retrieve data from and modify data in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 tables.

Topic	Description
Query Tools	Describes the different classes of tools used to work with SQL Server.
Using Options in SQL Server	Describes the various options that affect the result and performance of SQL statements.
Querying the SQL Server System Catalog	Describes the various interfaces to the SQL Server system catalog.
Elements of Transact-SQL	Describes the primary syntax elements used in Transact-SQL statements.
Query Fundamentals	Describes the fundamental processes of building Transact-SQL statements. Describes the main clauses used in the SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE statements: Select list FROM clause WHERE clause ORDER BY clause JOIN clauses
Manipulating Result Sets	Describes how to manipulate and control the results of queries by combining result sets and views, working with temporary result sets, producing summary reports of result sets, and sending notifications when result sets change.
Changing Data in a Database	Describes the methods for inserting new rows, and updating or deleting existing rows.
Procedural Transact-SQL	Describes the methods for grouping Transact-SQL statements.
Transactions (Database Engine)	Describes how several data modification statements can be grouped in a transaction.
Locking and Row Versioning	Describes how SQL Server prevents multiple users from modifying the same data at the same time.
Cursors (Database Engine)	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.
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.
Query Performance	Describes how application queries and updates interact with the database schema and how you can tune them for improved performance.

For information about using XPath queries or Transact-SQL statements that work with XML documents, see Using XML in SQL Server.

See Also

Concepts

Designing and Creating Databases

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance