Book Image

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel - Second Edition

By : Gordon S. S. Linoff
Book Image

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel - Second Edition

By: Gordon S. S. Linoff

Overview of this book

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel, 2nd Edition shows you how to leverage the two most popular tools for data query and analysis—SQL and Excel—to perform sophisticated data analysis without the need for complex and expensive data mining tools. Written by a leading expert on business data mining, this book shows you how to extract useful business information from relational databases. You'll learn the fundamental techniques before moving into the "where" and "why" of each analysis, and then learn how to design and perform these analyses using SQL and Excel. Examples include SQL and Excel code, and the appendix shows how non-standard constructs are implemented in other major databases, including Oracle and IBM DB2/UDB. The companion website includes datasets and Excel spreadsheets, and the book provides hints, warnings, and technical asides to help you every step of the way. Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel, 2nd Edition shows you how to perform a wide range of sophisticated analyses using these simple tools, sparing you the significant expense of proprietary data mining tools like SAS.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Foreword
17
EULA

Date/Time Functions

This section has functions that deal with dates and times.

Date Constant

How is a date constant represented in code?

IBM DB2

DATE(<string as YYYY-MM-DD>)

MySQL

DATE(<string as YYYY-MM-DD> )

Strings of the form YYYY-MM-DD are interpreted as dates when a date is expected.

Oracle

DATE <string as YYYY-MM-DD>

Postgres

<string as YYYY-MM-DD>::DATE

The ::DATE converts the string to a date. Strings of the form YYYY-MM-DD are interpreted as dates when a date is expected.

SAS proc sql

<string as ddMmmyyyy>d

SQL Server

CAST(<string as YYYY-MM-DD> as DATE)

Strings of the form YYYY-MM-DD are also recognized as date constants for almost all settings. (There is one arcane internationalization setting where this is not true.)

Current Date and Time

What is the current date and time?

IBM DB2

CURRENT_DATE 
(for date), CURRENT_TIMESTAMP (for date/time)

MySQL

CURDATE()(for date), NOW() (for date/time)

Oracle

TRUNC(sysdate) (for date...