Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with sql

Training courses for MCSA?

odinsdream — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:39:58 -0800

Please recommend training courses for certifications related to Microsoft server and SQL administration, such as MCSA. Our IT department is looking for educational opportunities that result in certifications. We handle Microsoft servers including SQL servers and IIS servers. It looks like MCSA is one of the best recognized options. We're looking for training courses geared towards specific exams, preferably available online, mainly to avoid having to be off-site for extended periods, rather than because of cost.

What certifications would you look for, and can you recommend specific courses or training companies?

How can I merge only the relevant results in SQL

Just this guy, y'know — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:29:42 -0800

I have a table in my database. It has a bunch of 4 digit codes representing a location (as well as other data). The problem is that some of these locations need to be replaced with an updated code. I have a second table with the substitutions that need to be made, but it is only a small minority of codes that need updating. How do I format my SQL statement to produce me a list of all records, with the new location code if it has a new code and the old code if there is no update needed. *BONUS ROUND*
There are actually two columns using these location codes (origin and destination) can I update both these columns at the same time in the same way?

Data Driven Clinical Care - Dynamic Graphing Website

rosswald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:56:00 -0800

I would like advice on creating a dynamic graphing website to display clinical data on a intranet website to better aide clinicians. What my superiors are seeking is a "Data Mall." My programming/server-admin. experience is minimal, but my Linux-hobbyist mentality hates the MS Access solution that is being built. The scene:

So, our administrators have fallen in love with a concept that they have seen at a conference where clinicians could quickly and easily see a short list of their patients who have certain 'abnormal' clinical values/conditions, or to rank themselves amongst other providers according to certain metrics. Etc. Some call it a "Data Mall."

Our senior data coordinator has done a great job of leveraging an MS Access database (pulled from our true clinical database) with a VB front-end to be accessed by all providers. But, it still kind of sucks. It takes a long time to load, and is just unwieldy to ask clinicians to use the Access front-end.

Me, and where I have gotten so far:

I have previously setup my own LAMP CentOS server running MediaWiki just for fun, and was basically able to create a similar setup on a Windows PC using "EasyPHP", on top of which I installed Mediawiki and found a script for making calls to "Ploticus" from Mediawiki. I was able to display the simplest-of-simplest pie-charts on my wiki.

The heart of the matter:

The problem is that this solution seems complex, especially since my PHP and SQL knowledge is limited. Would the best solution just to be to dig in and master this option? Any recommendations for starting points?

Or is there another tool, method, etc. that I should be looking at?

I realize that building this could almost be a full-time job, but like I said, part of me is just intrigued by the challenge, and part of me wants to impress the higher-ups. Still, maybe it is best left to the pros...?

model.where(:name => "string) INTERNAL ERROR!!! No attribute exists!

czytm — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 07:48:51 -0800

In Rails, I'm using a model to represent a database view. I'm getting an error when I try to search on an attribute. (gist). Not sure why this is happening, especially the fact that model.where(:attribute => "string") has an error but model.where("attribute = ?", "string") does not. Anyone run into this before? I haven't used a model to represent a view before, only to represent a table.

Help this Mac user learn PC software for job hunt

hrj — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:25:42 -0800

How can I improve my computer skills for job hunt when I use a Mac and the software is for PC? I recently posted about my career conundrum, and got some great advice.

I met with a career counselor today who will help me with my resume, and formatting towards the type of jobs we think would suit -- primarily Sales Operations/Analyst positions.

He suggested I take classes to brush up on my Excel (I self-taught a lot for my MBA program, but I used Office 2008 for Mac), learn SQL querying and VBA.

What is the best way for me to learn these things? I'm having a hard time finding classes and would prefer to learn online, but without a PC I'm not sure if that is possible.

I am in Austin, TX.

Thanks in advance and I appreciate any help or resources you can suggest.

How to share many pdf files with our many customers?

monkey_toes — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:18:24 -0800

How to share many pdf files with our many customers? My boss has tasked me with finding a software that will allow us to share a lot of pdf files with our customers. The preferred setup would run on on windows and could possible be hosted on an external web server. We are a a windows shop so IIS and MSSQL server is preferred.

We would need individual logins and passwords for each user, and each user would be in a group for each customer. These pdf files will contain mostly engineering drawings and things associated with those.

Am I SQL to the task?

lgandme0717 — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:52:08 -0800

I'm a full-time freelance web designer and developer for a wide variety of clients. One of my clients just asked me to build a web site them but it turns out that what they really want instead is a user registration system that has a rewards component. Can I beg, borrow or steal something that's already built, or should I get out now before I get in too deep? Up until now they've been managing the user registration through web forms that I made for them. Then, to keep track of the earned rewards part, they've been doing a combination of manual and automatic updates through a custom third-party software tool that populates a SQL database.

I'm comfortable with PHP and I know a small, very small amount about MySQL databases because I wrangle 60+ WordPress sites for other clients. But checking into phpMyAdmin for changing the occasional admin password or resetting voting tables is about my only real experience with working with MySQL databses directly.

I always like to learn new things, so at first I felt OK about this being outside of my comfort zone. But for this particular client, I feel like I have worked blind on many fronts on past assignments -- for example, I've been asked to set up web-based forms on another site that never had any mail server set up for it, which left me to waste a lot of time troubleshooting why my scripts weren't working no matter what I tried. It wasn't until I had to admit defeat to the client that one of them checked back with their "IT guy" and discovered the technical problems on their end.

I haven't yet received any information about the SQL database they're using today, what tables they're using, what data they need to collect, or how many registrants they have or expect to have. I'm afraid of not asking the right questions up front to get everything I need.

They have a very rapid turnaround time and deadline in mind. And while that's typical, I'm nervous about being poised to fail since I don't know what information I should have but didn't ask for.

I'm tempted to use something like WordPress, since it has a registration system and mail functionality and a powerful forms plug-in to let people register and send them all kinds of automatic notifications. Then I think I should be able to integrate with their other, existing SQL database without too much angst. But of course, this may just be the hammer that I have and everything about this project looks like a nail.

What other tools might I consider, and am I being foolhardy to pursue this? I appreciate your insights.

Web front end for SQL Server?

Rafaelloello — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:30:58 -0800

Are there really no web front end design environments that are as stupid simple as MS Access form design for a SQL Server back end? I can write a real clever stored procedure for SQL Server and assign cute and short aliases to every element of the result set and crank out an Access form or forms in no time and distribute it as a light weight front end with only execute permission required. Is there some analog for a web front end? In Microsoft Access I can create a nice svelte data project, publish it as an ade (Access Development Extension, I think?) and users on our network can have a tiny little client that is 1-5MB in size and serves up the data they need without any (known)credentials or even read access to the back end data on SQL Server. They simply have execute permission on the stored procedures on which their forms are based. If they have MS Access, fine. If they don't we can facilitate installing the runtime redistributable and all these light and elegant front ends work just the same. Ok, now that we've thinned the crowd down substantially, here's my question: Isn't there something that will let me create quick forms based on back end stored procedures using the web browser as the UI? It seems logical that I should be able to. Here are the credentials and location specifics to access the back end. Here is the stored proc I want to base the form on. Can I please have a little tool box to drag UI controls to a web-based form and a drop down to pick which parameters/aliases match up to each control? Maybe format one control and then copy and paste it and assign it to another parameter? Please?

SQL Query to find unique combinations

amazingstill — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:42:26 -0800

SQLNoobFilter: I am trying to find all unique combinations on a table. Does my simple query do the trick or is there more to it? For the purpose of this question, say I have a simple table with two variables, Letter and Name. I am trying to output the unique combinations of both Letter and Name so I can have one instance for every combination that is on the table.

My code is as follows: select distinct(letter),name from TableA

Will this get me to the output desired on the bottom?

Example TableA:
Letter Name
A Bob
A Larry
A Bob
B Bob
B Larry
C Larry
D Larry
D Larry

Output:
Letter Name
A Bob
A Larry
B Bob
B Larry
C Larry
D Larry

Thanks in advance -

Better Living Through Queries

bluejayway — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:54:13 -0800

Help me help myself- Please recommend books or websites that will help me to better understand SQL. I'm a learn-through-projects kind of person. My personal project of the week is playing around with the Lahman Baseball Database in MS Access. I'm a novice, but not a complete beginner. All of my simple queries are working out fine, but now that I'm beginning to write queries that calculate complex stats using multiple JOINs (is that bad?), I'm getting all kinds of screwy results.

I'd like to get a solid understanding of JOINS, nested JOINS, subqueries, etc. All of the examples I have found on the internet are either so simple that I don't think they'll scale or too complex and without good explanations.

Also, I am sticking with Access. It's what I have. I realize it's not great.

So, SQL guru's and DIY'ers, what are your recommendations?

How do I go from MAMP to champ?

This_Will_Be_Good — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:36:00 -0800

How do I transfer my locally-created Wordpress site (using MAMP) to my live Dreamhost site? I have been working on a Wordpress site locally using MAMP for a while. Now, I want to transfer this to the live site which is hosted at Dreamhost. I am not a web developer or whatever, so go easy on me.

(It's not a big deal if I botch this, as the site has never been published before. I also just put up an htaccess file on the live remote site so nobody can really access this while I am doing this transfer.)

So, I realize that I can push all the files from the local to the remote site via FTP, but I am pretty sure I also need to transfer all the date on the local SQL database, as that won't go over by just FTP'ing my local Wordpress directory, right?

I installed Wordpress on the live Dreamhost site, and it is up and running. However, it looks like Dreamhost used some odd database naming. Also, all the fields in the table on Dreamhost seem odd. For example, on my local setup I have "wp_posts". However, on Dreamhost, they are called something like "wp_asdlfk_posts". I don't really get what that middle jibberish is for (I just typed that jibberish in case the real jibberish is some password or something).

So, do I need to rename the remote database?

And then, do I need to rename all the fields before I import the local stuff? Or do I just need to delete and then overwrite everything?

SQL: How do I increment an alphanumeric field by + 1?

brokeaspoke — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:52:17 -0800

I'm a bit of a SQL novice but learning at a decent clip. I'm using SQL (Aqua Data Studio, if that matters to you) to update a couple of fields in an Oracle database table. I'd like to do this across a range of one of the fields. One field is a numeric field (trans_id - a transaction id) that I need to increase by 1 -- I think have that part licked. The next field is alphanumeric (calendar_name - represents the name of a week) and also needs to be incremented by one. The doozy (for me) is the alphanumeric field. Who's the guru? The numeric portion of each is the same (trans_id 201119 corresponds to calendar_name W201119). Examples:
trans_id (numeric field): 201119 updates to 201120, 201130 updates to 201131, 201148 updates to 201149, etc.
calendar_name (alphanumeric field): W201119 updates to W201120, W201130 updates to W201131, W201148 updates to W201149, etc.

Here's the UPDATE statement I wrote (it's obvious the calendar_name cannot be updated as written but you probably get the idea of what I'm after if you're reading this.):

UPDATE ekbf.pkb_actual_receipts
SET trans_id = (trans_id + 1), calendar_name = (calendar_name + 1)
WHERE calendar_name between 'W201119' and 'W201148';

Is there a way to visually organize database tables (and saved queries and views)?

iamkimiam — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:33:04 -0800

I have a wonderful (Oracle) SQL database and I use Navicat Lite to crunch around in it. My problem is that I'm staring at lists of 50+ tables, 60+ saved queries, 10+ views, etc. Is there anything I can do to somehow organise things in a visually pleasing and/or functional way? What do database administrators do? Do they use naming conventions to cluster tables together? Is there some sort of way I could group tables into folders (even if it's meaningless to the database)? Color-coding? Dividers? Please help me; this is getting unwieldy to navigate through.

Help me phone screen interview candidates more effectively?

ish__ — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:24:15 -0800

Help me do a better job of phone screening candidates for largely-technical/programming positions. I've been with my company for 6 years now. I'm a senior manager (worked up from intern). Of all the people on my team/in my office, I've been with the company only shorter than my boss, and on my team longer than anyone. I'm not in HR, just another middle-management guy. Our office/team is a satellite to the main office.

In addition to my regular work, because of my expereience and position on the team, I'm often asked to do phone screens of potential interview candidates. The phone screen is my idea, because we were getting a large number of interview candidates who looked great on paper, but when we got them in (for an afternoon of interviews & tests) they would fall flat on their face at the first sign of technical questions. Seriously, I had a guy write a cascading delete in SQL (two tables, foreign key ref) with a WHILE loop ffs.

So I'm looking at these resumes and have 30 minutes on the phone to do three things:
1. give a 5 minute elevator speech about the company
2. ask them questions about the resume
3. answer questions they have

with #2 - please help me come up with better questions or a better way to gauge someone's technical competency in SQL and/or C# over the phone.

Normally what I do is pick a couple projects or items on their resume and ask them to describe in detail. I explain that I've got a technical background, and they should not shy away from details - if it goes over my head I'll say so. And yet I rarely get anyone who provides *any* details. Like, if I was asked that over the phone I think I'd dive right into my close rate engine in SQL, or the internet lead processing workflow in C#. And I'd be all up in their face with algorithms implemented, APIs used, syntax for specific sections I'm proud of, etc. Hell, I feel like I could talk about technical stuff to someone asking about it for hours. How can I get people (who know these things) to respond like it that on the phone?

The problem is that because I'm not getting a really good gauge that I want, I'm still approving most of the candidates for the in-person interviews (and C# and SQL tests). And they'll fall flat on their face.

Long way of saying: what technical questions can you ask over the phone and get good responses for? Or how can I get a good gauge of technical skills with a 15 minute phone conversation and a resume?

How do I move this database online?

infinitywaltz — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:56:41 -0800

What's the easiest, most secure way to move this SQL database and its browser-based front end online? I'm the de facto IT person at a nonprofit, but I have very little formal computer education (like many de facto nonprofit IT people, I have an English degree), so I've never done this before. We have a fairly massive, custom-built database of our clients; it's an SQL database (on Microsoft SQL Server Express) with a web-based front end (written in ASP.net, if that matters). Currently, it's hosted on an in-house server that is NOT connected to the rest of the Internet. My boss wants it moved online so our satellite offices can connect to it, and I'm researching ways of doing that. Naturally, I have questions.

1. I'm guessing that the easiest way would be to rent a virtual server from somewhere like Rackspace. Is that accurate, or would there be a cheaper, easier way?

2. What about security? My boss is very concerned about that. Currently, the database has its own password, as does the in-house server it sits on. If we move this to a virtual server on Rackspace, should we take additional security measures?

3. Considering I've got very little background as a server administrator, what am I overlooking? I'm sure I'm overlooking stuff.

Again, please be gentle, genius IT people of the Hive, and remember, I was an English major, so all this is kind of new to me, but it's been added to my official job description, so there's no backing out now!

Mac file manipulation for power users?

ripley_ — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:07:02 -0800

Is there a SQL-like way to interact with the Mac filesystem? Failing that, what's better than the Finder for batch copies/moves/deletions? I have a ton of files spanning many folders that I'd like to delete based on certain criteria (label, modification date, etc).

I spend most of my day interacting with relational databases, so if I could just type something like "DELETE FROM directory, subdirectories WHERE LABEL='RED'" that would be amazing. However, I'm open to anything that's an improvement on using the mouse-heavy Finder to manipulate thousands of files and folders.

I'm running Mac OS 10.7, but solutions for Windows are welcome too (I know about the upcoming filesystem-related features in SQL Server Denali but I need something that works easily for an entire drive). Thanks in advance!

Improving my knowledge of SQL and PostgreSQL

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:59:42 -0800

Free or creative-commons books to help me improve my knowledge of SQL. I'm looking for any books or pdf tutorials on SQL (specifically for PostgreSQL). I'm able to do most things that I need to in SQL, but I'd like to become very proficient at using it. I use pgAdmin and more or less understand how to use it, but feel that there are more efficient ways of doing some steps.

Ideally, I would like books that are free or under a creative commons license. I would like them in pdf format so that I can read them on an iPad while not having an internet connection.

Thanks hivemind!

Why is Goldmine so sluggish?

griphus — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:46:15 -0800

Help, SQL connectivity issues are driving me batty! We use VOIP at the (very small, there's just three of us here) office and recently switched to a new router from the D-Link cheapie because the old one couldn't really handle the upstream.

We've got four boxes here, three Vista and one 7. I am trying to convince the bossman that Vista is a piece of crap, and I'm making progress, but things are a little disorganized at the moment to make the transition smooth.

Now, we use FrontRange Goldmine Premium Edition 9 as mail/contacts/QB-integration program. It runs off of a SQL server that runs on a Vista box. The Goldmine instances get all their data -- inbox, archive, everything -- off the SQL server.

So, ever since we switched the router, things have been sluggish as hell. We've tried everything: disabling all firewalls, DMZing, opening any and all ports, and plenty of other redundant things. Nothing is helping. Goldmine is slow as as hell and tends to crash if I ever try to make a new contact and send an email with an attachment.

Running the program off the computer with the SQL server on it, however, is fine, so I've narrowed the problem down to the connectivity. We've tried to different new routers, and even putting the old one back on, but it's still broken. So, help? Ideas? Anything?

Learning Oracle and SQL

Stagger Lee — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:46:46 -0800

Hey all. I need to learn the basic principles of SQL and Oracle databases. I'm looking for web resources and books. Got any favorites? What's out there? Thanks in advance.

puzzling over a query

hotelechozulu — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:44:03 -0800

I'm trying to write a SQL query on an 8 year old broken Access database that I didn't build, now on Access 2007. It's fun, I tell you what. I'm having trouble with a left outer join. Here's the tables I'm trying to join:

Crews table: crew number, group the crew belongs to, main office location, and the buildings served.
Employees table: crew number, employee name, employee's supervisor, and employee title.

I want to show a list of all the crews, the group the crew belongs to, with crew leader, main office location, and buildings served. Some of the crews don't have a crew leader. I want to order by crew and show each crew leader's supervisor and group (so I can group on these in a report). I need to show the crews without a crew leader, with the buildings served.

I'm trying to do a left outer join, but when I limit on employee title to "crew leader" (out of all the other titles), it knocks out all the crews without a crew leader. Close, but not quite right. Here's my SQL:

SELECT [tblEmployeeInfo.first] & " " & [tblEmployeeInfo.last] AS Name, tblEmployeeInfo.title, tblEmployeeInfo.reports_to, tblCrews.crew, tblCrews.buildings, [tblCrews.office] & " " & [tblCrews.room] AS location, tblCrews.group
FROM tblCrafts LEFT OUTER JOIN tblEmployeeInfo
ON tblCrews.crew=tblEmployeeInfo.crew
WHERE (((tblEmployeeInfo.title)="Crew Leader"))
ORDER BY tblEmployeeInfo.crew;

I've tried UNION, UNION ALL, flipping my field names. Any ideas? It looks a little funky because it's an Access query, but this one works, just not the way I want it to. Any advice?

If there's a better community to post this on, I'd appreciate that advice too.

SELECT careerhelp FROM much better informer mefites.

munchingzombie — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:47:04 -0800

It is time to refine my career. Help me become an excellent database administrator. I have been working as a political campaign manager since I asked this AskMe question. It has been a blast. But I am trying to move my career in a new direction doing data work. I have been working with relational databases with voter information and fundraising data but it is time to step up my game.

I am utilizing some recommended recommended resources to teach myself SQL (SQLzoo, Galazql among others). But I am having some difficulty seeing the big picture. What skills I will need to have to get a full time data job from which I can afford to live so I can do political data work? What other languages should I be fluent in? Any certification programs a must? And what resources can you point me to to get me there?

Thanks ask always. Metafilter has always been helpful in my meandering career.

What should I charge to build a mobile app?

Earl the Polliwog — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:42:09 -0800

How much should I charge for developing a mobile/web app? And, should I charge hourly, weekly, or ask for a fulltime position? The app will be for people who maintain a contact list. It will require a secure sign-in. There will be functionality to email or text all of the contacts for confirmation that their information has not changed; if they do not respond, the message will be re-sent later or stored for someone to call them. There will also be functionality to send pre-composed messages to certain groups of people on that list depending on their status.

I will use jQuery mobile (with an app wrapper) for the interface, with a small amount of PHP and some flavor of SQL on the server. I will need to use a program or service such as mailman to send the periodic emails. There will be more functionality added later, but this is the first step.

My experience with this is somewhat limited, although I feel comfortable with coding something of this complexity. I have a BS and MS in math but my coding/web experience to date has been in classes or for fun, not paid. My employer is fine with my lack of paid coding experience, and has people who I can ask for help if necessary as I am learning.

On one hand, I am hesitant to charge hourly because my time will include more learning than a more experienced developer, but on the other hand I'm not sure of a reasonable total fee for this project. The employer is open to fulltime employment as well, but I would like to deliver at least this step to prove myself first. And if I do charge hourly, what is a reasonable rate taking into account the learning curve?

How to write an SQL query in unix?

RobinFiveWords — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:19:07 -0800

I'd like to perform an SQL query with outer joins, from text files on my PC, using only a unix emulator. Is this possible on my PC? How would I write and execute it? I need to left-join A to each of B and C, and because of the size of A, Microsoft Access can't handle the joins. The results will contain about 1.5 million rows. There are actually dozens of A tables, and I need to run the same query for each A, then further study the results.

HP Compaq nondescript laptop, Windows XP, cygwin as my emulator, Oracle 9.2 installed. My experience with unix doesn't go much beyond manipulating text files, but I have a good programming background. Each discussion I've found via Google, though, starts well beyond my level, so I'm lost before I begin. Any pointers on how I can learn what I need to know?

i need a database!

handbanana — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:37:23 -0800

[Python/database filter] I wrote a script in python for a class and I want to challenge myself now to make it attached to a database... Basically for a class I created a python script which acted like an ATM interface. What I would like to do is create a database (sql, my sql?) Which would contain members/pins/bank balance.

What resources should I use to accomplish this task? I am doing this for shits and giggles as I would think expanding this old assignment. Plus I would learn along the way.

Thank you in advance!

What do I need to know to fill in the gaps?

jsturgill — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:29:45 -0800

Looking for books and articles on programming, design patterns, information architecture, and whatever else. Clear information on Things To Do and Things To Avoid, with a smattering of theory and opinion, would be great. I'm a self-taught programmer with, I assume, lots of bad habits and gaps in my knowledge compared to CS degree types.

My math never went beyond second-year Calculus in college, and now has atrophied. Anything beyond Algebra would likely leave me cold.

What articles/books would help introduce me to concepts and design patterns that will help me be more productive? For example, when and why to use a singleton or factory method pattern, examples of flexible database design, when does it make sense to trade normalization for speed, etc.

Ideally these would be things I could read for an hour or two each day to let me soak in the knowledge, which will help me as I work on a variety of ongoing side projects.

Also ideally, they would be grounded in practical, oft-encountered situations. I feel like I expend a lot of effort needlessly reinventing the wheel with every new challenge that comes up as my skills expand.

Currently I'm proficient (ish) in PHP, VB.NET, javascript, SQL, and Lua, so books or articles that use those languages to illustrate their points would be easier for me to sink my teeth into.

Works that try to be approachable would probably suit my level of knowledge better than insider dialogs that presume peerage and expert knowledge.