Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide

By : Miloš Radivojević, Dejan Sarka, William Durkin
Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide

By: Miloš Radivojević, Dejan Sarka, William Durkin

Overview of this book

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 is considered the biggest leap in the data platform history of the Microsoft, in the ongoing era of Big Data and data science. This book introduces you to the new features of SQL Server 2016 that will open a completely new set of possibilities for you as a developer. It prepares you for the more advanced topics by starting with a quick introduction to SQL Server 2016's new features and a recapitulation of the possibilities you may have already explored with previous versions of SQL Server. The next part introduces you to small delights in the Transact-SQL language and then switches to a completely new technology inside SQL Server - JSON support. We also take a look at the Stretch database, security enhancements, and temporal tables. The last chapters concentrate on implementing advanced topics, including Query Store, column store indexes, and In-Memory OLTP. You will finally be introduced to R and learn how to use the R language with Transact-SQL for data exploration and analysis. By the end of this book, you will have the required information to design efficient, high-performance database applications without any hassle.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
In-Memory OLTP Improvements in SQL Server 2016

The mighty Transact-SQL SELECT


You probably already know that the most important SQL statement is the mighty SELECT statement you use to retrieve data from your databases. Every database developer knows the basic clauses and their usage:

  • SELECT to define the columns returned, or a projection of all table columns

  • FROM to list the tables used in the query and how they are associated, or joined

  • WHERE to filter the data to return only the rows that satisfy the condition in the predicate

  • GROUP BY to define the groups over which the data is aggregated

  • HAVING to filter the data after the grouping with conditions that refer to aggregations

  • ORDER BY to sort the rows returned to the client application

Besides these basic clauses, SELECT offers a variety of advanced possibilities as well. These advanced techniques are unfortunately less exploited by developers, although they are really powerful and efficient. Therefore, I advise you to review them and potentially use them in your applications. The advanced...