Table of Contents

SELECT

FIRST, SKIP

Characteristics of FIRST and SKIP

The SELECT Columns List

The FROM clause

Selecting FROM a table or view

Selecting FROM a stored procedure

Selecting FROM a derived table

Selecting FROM a CTE

Joins

Inner vs. outer joins

Qualified joins

Natural joins

A Note on Equality

Cross joins

Ambiguous field names in joins

Joins with stored procedures

The WHERE clause

The GROUP BY clause

HAVING

The PLAN clause

Simple plans

Composite plans

UNION

ORDER BY

Sorting Direction

Collation Order

NULLs Position

Ordering UNION-ed Sets

ROWS

Mixing ROWS and FIRST/SKIP

ROWS Syntax in UNION Queries

FOR UPDATE [OF]

WITH LOCK

Usage with a FOR UPDATE Clause

How the engine deals with WITH LOCK

Caveats using WITH LOCK

INTO

Common Table Expressions (“WITH ... AS ... SELECT”)

Recursive CTEs

INSERT

INSERT ... VALUES

INSERT ... SELECT

The “Unstable Cursor” Problem

INSERT ... DEFAULT VALUES

The RETURNING clause

Inserting into BLOB columns

UPDATE

Using an alias

The SET Clause

The WHERE Clause

The “Unstable Cursor” Problem

The ORDER BY and ROWS Clauses

The RETURNING Clause

The INTO Sub-clause

Updating BLOB columns

UPDATE OR INSERT

The RETURNING clause

DELETE

Aliases

WHERE

PLAN

ORDER BY and ROWS

RETURNING

MERGE

EXECUTE PROCEDURE

“Executable” Stored Procedure

EXECUTE BLOCK

Input and output parameters

Statement Terminators