Queries, Cursors, Views  «Prev  Next»
Lesson 2Queries, Cursors, and Views Prerequisites
ObjectivePrerequisites for taking this course.

Prerequisites for Queries, Cursors, and Views in SQL-Server 2022

To effectively study queries, cursors, and views in SQL Server 2022, you should have a foundational understanding of the following prerequisites, organized by concept:
✅ General Prerequisites (for all three topics)
Topic Description
Relational Database Concepts Understand what a table, row, column, primary key, and foreign key are.
T-SQL Basics Familiarity with Transact-SQL (T-SQL), SQL Server’s dialect of SQL.
SQL Server Environment Know how to connect to and navigate SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

📘 Prerequisites for Studying Queries
Concept What You Should Know
SELECT Syntax Basic `SELECT`, `FROM`, `WHERE`, `ORDER BY`, `GROUP BY`, `HAVING`.
Logical Query Processing Order Understanding the internal processing order of SQL clauses (FROM → WHERE → GROUP BY → HAVING → SELECT → ORDER BY).
Joins Inner join, left/right join, full join basics.
Subqueries Inline and correlated subqueries.
Set Operators `UNION`, `INTERSECT`, `EXCEPT`.

🧠 Prerequisites for Studying Cursors
Concept What You Should Know
Procedural T-SQL Basics of `DECLARE`, `BEGIN`, `END`, control-of-flow keywords like `WHILE`, `IF`, etc.
Variables How to declare and use `@variables`.
Looping and Conditional Logic Understanding iteration and conditional execution in T-SQL.
Temporary Tables or Table Variables Optional but helpful for advanced cursor use cases.

👁️‍🗨️ Prerequisites for Studying Views
Concept What You Should Know
SELECT Queries Since views are based on queries, this is essential.
Table Relationships Understanding joins is crucial for multi-table views.
Permissions & Security Basic knowledge of user access rights and schema ownership (for secure view design).
Schema Binding (optional) Useful for creating views with constraints or indexes.

🛠 Suggested Tools/Setup
  • SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition (free for learning)
  • SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Azure Data Studio
  • Sample database: AdventureWorks

🧭 SQL Server 2022 Study Roadmap: Queries, Cursors & Views


Here's a structured study roadmap and checklist for mastering queries, cursors, and views in SQL Server 2022, designed to build your knowledge step-by-step:
  1. 📌 Phase 1: Setup & Environment Familiarity

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 1–2 hours

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Install SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition
    • Install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
    • Restore sample database (e.g., AdventureWorks or WideWorldImporters)
    • Connect to your local SQL Server instance via SSMS
    • Create your own database and tables for practice
  2. 📌 Phase 2: SQL Fundamentals Review

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 1–2 days

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Understand relational database terms: table, column, row, primary key, foreign key
    • Learn SQL data types: INT, VARCHAR, DATE, etc.
    • Practice CREATE TABLE, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and DROP
  3. 📌 Phase 3: Core Queries (SELECT Statements)

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 4–6 days

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Write basic SELECT statements with FROM and WHERE
    • Use ORDER BY, DISTINCT, TOP
    • Learn filtering with LIKE, BETWEEN, IN, IS NULL
    • Use aggregate functions: COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX
    • Practice GROUP BY and HAVING
    • Perform joins: INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL OUTER
    • Practice subqueries: scalar, multi-row, correlated
    • Use set operations: UNION, INTERSECT, EXCEPT
  4. 📌 Phase 4: Views (Reusable Query Abstractions)

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 2–3 days

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Create basic views using CREATE VIEW
    • Modify views using ALTER VIEW
    • Drop views with DROP VIEW
    • Use views in SELECT, JOIN, and WHERE clauses
    • Understand updatable views and their limitations
    • Explore schema binding with WITH SCHEMABINDING
    • Learn Indexed Views (also called Materialized Views)
  5. 📌 Phase 5: Cursors (Row-by-Row Processing)

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 2–3 days

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Understand when and why to use cursors vs. set-based operations
    • Use DECLARE, OPEN, FETCH, CLOSE, DEALLOCATE with cursors
    • Practice forward-only and read-only cursors
    • Implement a WHILE loop to process cursor data
    • Learn about static, dynamic, and keyset-driven cursors
    • Identify performance drawbacks of cursors and how to avoid them
  6. 📌 Phase 6: Projects and Integration

    ⏱ Estimated Time: 2–4 days

    ✅ Checklist:
    • Write a report using a view that joins multiple tables
    • Implement a cursor to audit or update rows conditionally
    • Refactor a cursor-based solution into a set-based query
    • Add a schema-bound view and test its performance
    • Document examples of non-updatable views
🧩 Bonus Topics (Optional for Deeper Learning) ✅ Checklist:
  • Common Table Expressions (CTEs)
  • Window Functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, OVER)
  • Dynamic SQL
  • Temporary Tables vs. Table Variables
  • Error handling in T-SQL (TRY...CATCH)

✅ Final Output: Learning Journal or GitHub Repo
  • Maintain a log of each topic with SQL scripts and notes.
  • Upload practice queries, views, and cursor code to GitHub for reference or reuse.

Verify that you have the Proper Background for this course.
Queries, Cursors and Views is an introductory-level course. It does require the following, however:
  1. Experience Using the Microsoft Windows NT Server network operating system
  2. Familiarity with the definition, theory, and underlying function of relational databases
  3. Understanding of basic ANSI SQL statements.
  4. Completion of Creating a Database, the first course in this series, or equivalent understanding of relational concepts, basic Transact-SQL statements, and how to create databases and tables.

Set-Based Queries

SQL Server is designed to handle data in sets. SQL is a declarative language, meaning that the SQL query describes the problem, and the Query Optimizer generates an execution plan to resolve the problem as a set. Iterative T-SQL code is code that acts upon data one row at a time instead of as a set. It is typically implemented via cursors and forces the database engine to perform thousands of wasteful single-row operations, instead of handling the problem in one larger, more efficient set. The performance cost of these single-row operations is huge. Depending on the task, SQL cursors perform about half as well as set-based code, and the performance differential grows with the size of the data. This is why set-based queries, based on an obvious physical schema, are so critical to database performance. A good physical schema and set-based queries set up the database for excellent indexing, further improving the performance of the query.
In the next lesson, what is required to take this course will be discussed.

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