SQL style

Intermediate SQL

Jasmin Ludolf

Data Science Content Developer, DataCamp

SQL formatting

Formatting is not required
But lack of formatting can cause issues

select title, release_year, country from films limit 3

|title                                           |release_year|country|
|------------------------------------------------|------------|-------|
|Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages|1916        |USA    |
|Over the Hill to the Poorhouse                  |1920        |USA    |
|The Big Parade                                  |1925        |USA    |

Best practices

SELECT title, release_year, country
FROM films 
LIMIT 3;

|title                                           |release_year|country|
|------------------------------------------------|------------|-------|
|Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages|1916        |USA    |
|Over the Hill to the Poorhouse                  |1920        |USA    |
|The Big Parade                                  |1925        |USA    |

Capitalize keywords
Add new lines

Style guides

SELECT  
    title, 
    release_year, 
    country
FROM films 
LIMIT 3;

|title                                           |release_year|country|
|------------------------------------------------|------------|-------|
|Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages|1916        |USA    |
|Over the Hill to the Poorhouse                  |1920        |USA    |
|The Big Parade                                  |1925        |USA    |

Style guides

Holywell's style guide: https://www.sqlstyle.guide/

Sequence of scribbles becoming a straight line

Write clear and readable code

Semicolon

SELECT title, release_year, country
FROM films 
LIMIT 3;

Best practice
Easier to translate between SQL flavors
Indicates the end of a query

Dealing with non-standard field names

release year instead of release_year
Put non-standard field names in double-quotes

SELECT title, "release year", country
FROM films 
LIMIT 3;

Why do we format?

Easier collaboration
Clean and readable
Looks professional
Easier to understand
Easier to debug

Let's practice!

Intermediate SQL