What is ANSI SQL? Why This Forum?

The ANSI SQL forum exists to discuss programming in Structured Query Language (SQL), independent of a specific implementation or RDMS. SQL is a widely used language for data retrieval and manipulation in databases.

In 1989, the American National Standards Institute (http://www.ansi.org) published a SQL specification. The ANSI SQL standard was revised in 1992 and this is often referred to as SQL-92 or SQL-2. View the SQL-92 standards draft document.

http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql/sql1992.txt

SQL-99 or SQL:1999 is the current standard. SQL-99 is sometimes called SQL-3.

The latest standard is SQL:2003 or SQL:200n. This standard is currently under development. You can download the SQL:200n working documents from Whitemarsh Information Systems Corp.

http://www.wiscorp.com/sql/SQL200nFCD.zip

Several revisions of the SQL Standards working documents are available from the SQL Standards Organization website.

ftp://sqlstandards.org/SC32/WG3/Progression_Documents/Informal_working_drafts/

Most major database vendors support the SQL-92 standard. However, the levels of conformance vary. Some vendors have gone beyond the SQL-92 standard and most have their own extensions to the SQL language.

Michael Gorman wrote an article, ôIs Sql A Real Standard Anymore?,ö for the April 2001 issue of ôThe Data Administration Newsletterö from TDAN.

http://www.tdan.com/i016hy01.htm

Peter Gulutzan authored an article on the ôSQL Standardö for the Jan. 2003 issue of ôThe Data Administration Newsletterö from TDAN.

http://www.tdan.com/i023fe03.htm

More articles related to SQL can be found at

http://www.netaktive.com/biblio/sql/SQL98/standards.html
http://www.wiscorp.com/SQLStandards.html
http://www.jcc.com/SQLPages/jccs_sql.htm
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2000/10/20/aboutSQL_1.html
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql/sql2bnf.aug92.txt

The United States Federal Information Processing Standards Publication, ôStandard for Database Language SQLö can be downloaded from http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip127-2.htm.
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A number of database forums exist on Tek-Tips where database or RDMS specific questions can be answered. As mentioned, most database products do not fully comply with the ANSI SQL-92 or SQL-99 standards. As a result, an ANSI SQL solution may not work in a particular database. Therefore, if you use one of the products listed below and your question pertains to the product, you'll probably get an answer more quickly in a forum for that product.
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forum177 Corel: Paradox Forum
forum178 IBM: DB2 Forum
forum179 Informix: Informix Dynamic Server Forum
forum181 Microsoft: Access General discussion Forum
forum701 Microsoft: Access Queries and Access/SQL Forum
forum183 Microsoft: SQL Server Forum
forum259 Oracle: Developer Forum
forum119 Oracle: Enterprise Developer Suite Forum
forum185 Oracle: Oracle release 5, 6, and 7 Forum
forum186 Oracle: Oracle release 8 and 8i Forum
forum759 Oracle: Oracle release 9i Forum
forum318 Pervasive: Pervasive.SQL Forum
forum699 PostgreSQL Inc: PostgreSQL Forum
forum188 Sybase: SQL Server Forum
forum352 Sylvain Faust, Intl (SFI): SQL-Programmer Forum
forum436 T.C.X DataKonsult AB: MySQL Forum[/tt]
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Please feel free to comment, suggest revisions and/or additional forums to include in the list.