Intro
This Tutorial was made to give you some working knowledge of SQL. It does not include advanced topics like stored procedures,etc.

If you want to use a database on you site then you MUST know SQL. SQL stands for structured query language. It is pronounced sequel(like a movie sequel.) SQL allows you to manipulate databases through the internet. This tutorial will show you how to retrieve, modify, delete and add new records to a database. A basic sql statement is formed like this:

DIRECTIVE fields [WHERE ((something op something)
   [conj] (somthing op something))];

text inside [ brackets ] is optional.
Directive - (see below)
fields - the fields to be used. If you want to use all, put an asterisk * 
WHERE - see below
op - operator:  =   !=
conj - conjunction for having two or more criteria:  AND,OR,NOT

Directives
A directive is a SQL command that tells the parser to do something. The directives that will be discussed are SELECT, DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, WHERE, FROM, IS, LIKE.

Retrieving Records

SELECT * FROM table
To retrieve records we need to use the SELECT directive. Then you need to specify the fields to retrieve inside brackets [ ] or you can use an asterisk * to select all fields. The use the FROM directive followed by the table name in which to get the records from. As an example, I will take all fields from a table named examples.

SELECT * FROM examples;

Deleting Records
To delete a record, you need to use the DELETE directive followed my the fields to delete followed by FROM and the table name to delete from plus WHERE and the criteria. As an example, I'll delete all records from a table called phonebook where the age of the person is under 18.

DELETE * FROM phonebook WHERE ((age < 18));

Adding New Records
To add a new record, you use the INSERT INTO directive followed by the table name and then the fields to add data inside ( parenthesis ) and seperated by commas. Then you type VALUES followd by the data that should go into the fields inside ( parenthesis ) and seperated by commas. As an example i will place some foney data into a table called phonebook.

INSERT INTO phonebook (name,age,number) 
       VALUES ("John Doe","32","610-555-1212);

Modifying Records
When modifying records, the UPDATE SET directive is used. First type UPDATE, followed by the table name in which the records to be updated exist. Then type SET followed by each fieldname & "=" & the data to be put inside the field. Then you probably want to use WHERE to only update certain records and not every one.. For multiple field modifications seperate each by a comma. As an exampl, I will update phonebook with some new data.

UPDATE phonebook SET name=''Jane Doe'',age=''17'',phone=''484-555-1212'';

LIKE
The LIKE directive is very usefull when doing searches. Say i want to find the word foobar in a field named keywords in table whatever. I would do it like this:

SELECT * FROM whatever WHERE keywords LIKE ''%foobar%'';

The percent % is used to represent any possible character,number. So this would select all records that have foobar in their keywords field.

IS
The IS directive is basically the same thing as equal to =. You use it in place of LIKE if you only want to find the exact specified text. Example:

SELECT * FROM whatever WHERE ID IS 10;

Notes!