What You Should Know About SQL and How to Work with Databases

We are back for another session from the recently concluded Coding Boot Camp 2022. In this video presented by Hannie Van der Merwe, we will be looking at the structured query language, or simply SQL, and how this works with databases, and its role in Windows application development. This session will walk us through the process of connecting to a database and how to use a DBGrid as a display component. We will also be looking at SQL SELECT query structure, statement syntax, and some of its examples. This session is based on Kevin Bond’s How to Program Effectively in Delphi for AS/A Level Computer Science book.

How to connect to a database?

Generally, a database connection allows the client software to talk or communicate with a database server. Some popular examples of database servers include Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft Access, Embarcadero’s InterBase, and more. There are many possible ways to connect to a database and Hannie will clearly demonstrate some of them in this presentation. The video will walk us through the process of connecting to a database using a data module. We will also learn how to connect to a database using the DBGrid component. It is interesting to note that Delphi’s DBGrid is one of the most widely used DB-aware components in database-related applications. Its main purpose is to enable your application’s users to manipulate records from a dataset in a tabular grid.

The session will also highlight the proper structure of the SQL Query. It is important that you close your query first because when you are working with Microsoft Access or any database, the record will become inaccessible. Keep in mind that if one person is working with that record, no other person can get access to that specific record. Therefore, we always close our query. The video will also help us understand the uses of SQL SELECT statements and their complete query structure, the keywords, and their proper sequence. While you do not always use all the keywords, it is very important to note that the order of these keywords is unchangeable. Along with the detailed explanation, Hannie will also feature various examples for us to explore.

To learn more about SQL and how to work with databases, feel free to watch the video below.