A Gentle Introduction to SQL Using SQLite

This tutorial was crafted by Troy Thibodeaux as a human-friendly introduction to the world of databases and SQL. It introduces database skills from the ground up using SQLite and a small set of data from the world of campaign finance.

This tutorial largely hews to Troy’s original SQL-Tutorial, but updates the material to work with DB Browser for SQLite. Source code for this tutorial lives on Github.

• Part I
  • Hello SQL!
  • Installing DB Browser for SQLite
  • Creating the First Database
  • Creating a Table
  • Inserting Data
  • Querying Data
  • Using DISTINCT to get a distinct set
  • The WHERE Clause
  • Combining conditions with AND and OR
  • Sorting results with ORDER BY
  • Changing values with UPDATE
  • Deleting data
  • Further References
• Part II
  • Getting started
  • Nothing can come of nothing: Using IS NULL
  • Knowing your limitations: Using LIMIT
  • Casting a wider net with LIKE
  • Using string functions: SUBSTR(), TRIM(), UPPER(), LOWER()
  • Pull yourself together: The concatenate operator (||)
  • Pick One: Using BETWEEN and IN (NOT IN)
  • Aggregate Functions: COUNT, MAX, MIN, SUM, AVG
  • Beyond functions: Custom calculations
  • Subqueries, the Russian dolls of SQL
  • GROUP BY
  • HAVING
  • Revisiting subqueries
  • Conclusion
• Part III
  • Spreading the data around: Data Normalization
  • Referentially speaking: Associating tables using foreign keys
  • Reaching across the aisle using JOIN
  • Explicit JOIN syntax
  • OUTER JOIN
  • Why be normal? Denormalization as an informed choice.
  • Conclusion
  • Further Resources
• Appendix
  • Importing data from a file
  • Saving scripts

Indices and tables

• Index
• Module Index
• Search Page

A Gentle Introduction to SQL Using SQLite by Troy Thibodeaux is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.