Chapter 11: What You Need to Know about SQL

Chapter 12: ODBC and FileMaker Pro

Chapter 13: Synchronizing Data

As database technology has grown over the years, a common standard architecture, known as the relational model, has come to be accepted by most vendors and users. Its terminology is common and readily understood. Along with the relational model, SQL the Structured Query Language has become an international standard. Database products adhere to the relational model and to SQL; in doing so, they can interact with one another and with other applications.

The chapters in this part of the book are devoted to importing and exporting data to and from FileMaker Pro. You may be moving it to a word processing document or from another database (or either from a spreadsheet). Since different products from different vendors are designed with different purposes, it is important to have the vendor-neutral ground of relational terminology and SQL so that you can know what you are talking about.

FileMaker Pro was not designed originally as a relational database: such things were unknown in the world of personal computers at the time. It is the only personal computer database product to have successfully made the transition from prerelational to relational technology.

This chapter examines the basics of SQL and shows you how they map to the sometimes different terminology of FileMaker Pro.