Ideal for a database programmer or system DBA, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Programming by Example is an excellent example-based tutorial on mastering today's SQL features. Packed with lots of tips and tricks, this title will let most anyone do more with SQL Server. Although there are many pictures screen showing graphical SQL Server tools, the focus of this book is clearly on learning real command-line Transact-SQL (T-SQL). When it comes to the question, this book does a great job of exploring all your options for joining relational data, and grouping data for further reporting. In accordance with the title, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Programming by Example is filled with dozens of examples of SQL commands (and the results are returned) so you can try this material for yourself and really learn the language thoroughly. Then, the author turned to the side of the server programming with digestible guide to creating stored procedures and triggers Dragan. - Richard Topics covered: History and introduction to Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL depth (T-SQL) tutorial (including T-SQL data types and control flow statements) Create and modify tables and views Creating a query with SELECT statement Inserting, deleting, and updating Using data join (inside, outside, and cross join) Index (database optimization and index maintenance) data integrity (constraints and foreign keys) Business logic with stored procedures (including error handling and security) Tutorials and tips to trigger (including nested and recursive triggers) User-Defined Functions (UDFS) complex queries and subqueries Row-oriented processing with cursor (including SQL Server cursor types) Transactions in T-SQL (including basic ACID properties, isolation levels, and lock) deadlock and Avoiding Transfer data from SQL Server with bulk copy and Data Transformation Services (DTS) Database in heterogeneous environments (distributed queries and linked servers) Using SQL Query Analyzer