I haven't got to go deep into the book yet but what I saw was pretty good contect but it's not a beginner book.

It's the only Oracle book I seem to need. Great explanations. Includes new Oracle features. One of the best descriptions on inner, outer, left, right joins. Saved my tail a couple of times. It includes just the right amount of information.

The book does a nice job of dissecting the syntax of SELECT statements and their various components, but in my opinion would fall short for most practical users. The examples are closer to what you might find in one of those "SQL for Smarties" books than what a normal developer writing applications that interface with Oracle databases might be looking to master. For example, there isn't in depth coverage of flow-of-control mechanisms and only a few pages in the first chapter covering DML operations.

The goal of the authors is to explain how to write good readable SQL queries in Oracle 10g. The book starts with how to construct SELECT statements to group, filter and format result sets for dates, reports and data analysis. Then it proceeds to cover Oracle-specific queries and functions for hierarchies (data in tree structures), object-oriented types, XML documents, regular expressions and models (spreadsheet-like objects). Where relevant, there are notes about the differences between SQL for Oracle 10, Oracle 9 and the ANSI standard.

As expected from the title, the chapters using declarative programming (i.e. SQL queries) for relational data, hierarchical data and reports are the most comprehensive. Chapters on interfacing Oracle SQL with other technologies such as scripting (Oracle's PL/SQL), object-oriented types, XML and regular expressions, or on optimization, are brief but sufficient to get you started, especially if you have a existing background in those technologies.

This is the 2nd edition, so it's not surprising that the scope of the book is well-defined and that the writing is easy to read and polished. The example data and queries are just complex enough to demonstrate the issues without obscuring the main points. Minor annoyance about Chapter 15, "SQL Best Practices", which does not explain how to use the query analyzer and bind variables.

I was already familiar with basic Oracle SQL but didn't really understand the language; this book blew away many of the fuzzy concepts in my mind and provided me the framework to tackle more complex problems.

Kam-Hung Soh, 21 May 2007.
[...]

I'm no SDE, but I had a need to learn enough SQL to enable me to hit my company's Data Warehouse tables directly and employ some complex joins. This was the book recommended to me, and it did the trick. I sat down and began reading it and was quickly writing increasingly complex queries. I found the explanations easy to follow, and the format intuitive. The only fault I found is that there is a lack of more complex join examples, as when there are more than one field being joined on or more than two tables being joined.

I'm no SDE, but I had a need to learn enough SQL to enable me to hit my company's Data Warehouse tables directly and employ some complex joins. This was the book recommended to me, and it did the trick. I sat down and began reading it and was quickly writing increasingly complex queries. I found the explanations easy to follow, and the format intuitive. The only fault I found is that there is a lack of more complex join examples, as when there are more than one field being joined on or more than two tables being joined.

Half of this 450 page book surveys basic SQL, and the other half is on features Oracle added to SQL in versions 9i and especially 10g. I bought the book because I believed the title, and the reviews here that said it was an excellent reference. But, to quote one of its authors, "This book is NOT a reference manual, and it is NOT an administrator's guide". It's an overview of SQL only. It is not an introduction; nor can it be used, reference book-fashion, all by itself.

So for my purposes, I was quite disappointed. But the book has some utility, in its explanations of what can be done with Oracle SQL. Especially in the explanations of analytic functions, regular expressions, and XML. It's like a series of magazine articles, with discussion and examples.

The book has some weaknesses:

* The index is very skimpy and incomplete. This is what you'd expect actually, in a book that isn't ever meant to be referred back to.

* The focus on SQL is diluted and inconsistent. For example, there is an explanation on how to set up partitioning. Another section compares Oracle's implementation of regular expressions to Perl's . Sometimes background and comparisons are present, sometimes they're not.

* There isn't much explanation of *why* you'd want to do some of the *whats* that can be done. Yes, it's possible to build classes and objects into a database, but why do it in SQL instead of Java? (Of course the *hows* would be quite inadequate, if this were a how-to book).

* There is too much explanation of how things used to be done in 8i. That version was five years old back when this edition was published. 8i shouldn't take up more than a paragraph or three in a book that purports to cover 9i and 10g.

In summary, if you don't read trade magazines, and you don't care to spend your time on Oracle websites and forums, and you know you won't have access to 11g anytime soon, you may find this book a decent (altho somewhat pricey) way to broaden your horizons of what you can do with Oracle SQL.

Half of this 450 page book surveys basic SQL, and the other half is on features Oracle added to SQL in versions 9i and especially 10g. The book seems to have been intentionally "crippled" to limit it to the category of introductory overview, because much of what you need to know to work with Oracle SQL is simply not there:

* Most technical books begin the discussion of each new operation with a syntax diagram. Not this one! All you get here is a code example or two that supports the text.

* There is little discussion of built-in functions beyond the date/time ones.

* The index is very skimpy. It doesn't even contain all the Oracle reserved words that are used in the text. For example, has the use of the SIBLINGS keyword slipped your mind? Don't expect any help looking it up again! Heck, there aren't even entries for DUAL, COMMIT and ROLLBACK, or COUNT() !

* There isn't a single word about materialized views, which is something you will need to know about in the real world.

* There is nothing about triggers.

* There is no discussion of the various Oracle clients available (Toad, SQL*Plus, SQL Navigator, etc)

Ironically, since the book wants to cover all the new extended functionality, some very basic information is included only as it pertains to an advanced topic. For example:

* DDL is generally ignored. This leaves you clueless about the regular CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW (for example) statements that you will encounter and use daily as an Oracle developer. But there's lots of DDL in the sections on classes and objects, hierarchical queries, collections -- stuff that you'll use infrequently if at all.

* There is nothing about performance. Yes, a full discussion of tuning is beyond the scope of an introductory text, but jeez they don't even discuss indexes, except in the section on partitioning!

* There is nothing about relational integrity (or constraints of any kind) except in the section on hierarchical queries.

It's clear O'Reilly wants you to buy this expensive but slim volume as part of a set, probably with another book to provide the rest of the information about SQL; a "nutshell" book to cover syntax and options; a guide to Toad or some other client; a DBA book for basic information about DDL and indexes; a performance/tuning book; and a PL-SQL book.

Another area of major weakness might not bother a reader who is completely new to relational databases. But if you are coming to Oracle from DB2 or SQL Server, this book is not much help. Oracle SQL is only superficially similar to ANSI SQL. Unfortunately, this bookmakes no mention of the things Oracle leaves out. Two big issues for me, were that Oracle won't let you write an outer join that uses both join-conditions and where-conditions; and Oracle has no simple way to insert into one table from a join with another table. I wasted several days in anguished de-bugging of SQL logic that I "knew" worked in all DBMSs -- NOT! (Now I know why Oracle code so often consists of a mess of layers and layers of inline views).

There are other, less-major problems with this book that I might as well pile on:

* There is too much explanation of how things used to be done in 8i. Hello, that version is five years old! If any shop is still running 8i, they have lots of dusty manuals laying around. 8i shouldn't take up more than a paragraph or two in a book that purports to cover 9i and 10g.

* The author's coding style is idiosyncratic, in my opinion. Is it too much to ask that elements at the same logical level be indented to the same number of places??

To sum up, this book is like a series of magazine articles describing *what* can be done with Oracle SQL. But it doesn't do a good job of telling you *how* to do it.

I will agree with other reviewers that cite this book as an excellent resource. It is well organized and easy to follow from topic to topic without getting lost. The examples are well introduced and written with few minor errors. These will be easy to spot for someone who has used any flavor of SQL.

Some issues that I did have with the book revolve around what it isn't. Most of the book revolves around features that are new to 10g rather than a solid overview of the Oracle DML. This means that readers will not be properly introduced to string manipulation outside of the regular expression implementation which is new to 10g (Legacy DBs?). Also, you will have to look elsewhere for good information on CAST, CONVERT and case changing functions. These can be crucial as Oracle is much more strongly typed with regards to data than MS SQL Server.

As DBAs or reporting analysts aren't always privy to the latest release, I see the concentration on 10g's new features as a flaw. Over all this book will introduce you to Oracle SQL in an easy to follow manner. Experienced SQL users will be able to become functional by using this book but, will scratch their heads when they encounter the DML language gaps.

I will agree with other reviewers that cite this book as an excellent resource. It is well organized and easy to follow from topic to topic without getting lost. The examples are well introduced and written with few minor errors. These will be easy to spot for someone who has used any flavor of SQL.

Some issues that I did have with the book revolve around what it isn't. Most of the book revolves around features that are new to 10g rather than a solid overview of the Oracle DML. This means that readers will not be properly introduced to string manipulation outside of the regular expression implementation which is new to 10g (Legacy DBs?). Also, you will have to look elsewhere for good information on CAST, CONVERT and case changing functions. These can be crucial as Oracle is much more strongly typed with regards to data than MS SQL Server.

As DBAs or reporting analysts aren't always privy to the latest release, I see the concentration on 10g's new features as a flaw. Over all this book will introduce you to Oracle SQL in an easy to follow manner. Experienced SQL users will be able to become functional by using this book but, will scratch their heads when they encounter the DML language gaps.

The collaborative work of Oracle experts Sanjay Mishra and Alan Beaulieu, Mastering Oracle SQL is now in an expanded and updated second edition covering Oracle Database 10g. An extensive reference, meant for the experienced programmer looking to elevate his or her skill in Oracle SQL to the point of expertise, Mastering Oracle SQL especially focuses upon the software's strengths such as regular expressions, interrow calculations, recursive queries, analytic and advanced GROUP BY functions, and more. Examples, sample code, and detailed walkthroughs for applying Oracle SQL to given tasks and challenges make Mastering Oracle SQL a practical and thorough tool for independent study and professional use.

There are a lot of SQL books out there and this one is by no means the "fattest" but if your goal is querying or anything to do with business intelligence, this one is the best. It covers basic queries to advanced queries such as subqueries, CASE statement, and the newer analytic functions. The examples are great.

I found this book especially helpful because it was written so a beginning DBA can turn to a page and immediately make sense of what's written. I am a fledgling DBA working with large SQL-type databases in a high-pressure environment. This book provided interesting gotcha's and excellent tips and work-arounds that have been useful in debugging code real-time.
Written to encompass Oracle 10g, this book is a great addition to the manual and has helped me finesse my skills in writing queries, working with the built-in functions, and re-working some of the once-valuable strings that were abandoned after upgrading to a newer version.
Well worth the money - time well spent reading - and pays for itself after helping you out of the inevitable jam.

[A REVIEW OF THE SECOND EDITION]

Those of you dealing with the latest Oracle 10g, and perhaps frustrated with the quality of the Oracle documentation, might want to consult this second edition. Its greatest difference compared to the first edition is simply that it deals with 10g, whereas the latter talks about 9g. Mishra and Beaulieu explain, with extensive detail and examples, the new features. Like support for unix-like regular expressions within SQL statements. Given that many Oracle users probably hail from a unix/C background, they will welcome this.

Also, for mapping between XML and SQL data types, 10g now integrates XML. This will reduce the impedance mismatch between the object oriented and relational outlooks that bedevil many programmers who have to deal with both.

The only problem I found with this book is its lack of mention of competing databases. Because the authors explicitly assume that you have already committed to using Oracle as your database. Fair enough. But perhaps occasional comments in the text, about how a given command or feature is not possible in another database would be useful and appreciated by Oracle users. Heck, to be fair, on this point, the book is at no relative disadvantage. For example, I have texts on dB2 and MySQL that likewise say zilch about their competitors.