In my occasional role as a Sybase system administrator, I am often asked for a book that a person could read to come up to speed on Sybase. While many books cover Structured Query Language (SQL), until now no book has discussed the full functionality of the Sybase product line. This book provides a comprehensive guide to the Sybase product line, including the SQL server, client programs such as Data Workbench and APT Workbench, and utilities such as the bulk copy program and interactive SQL.

Date is probably the most widely read and one of the most widely respected authors in the field of relational databases. He has many volumes to his credit, including books on DB2[1], INGRES [2], and SQL/DS [3], and his classic An introduction to database systems [4]. Much of the generic material from the other books has found its way into this volume. For example, the chapters on SQL from data definition to views, and the chapters on security, integrity, and transaction processing, contain a lot of familiar material. Each implementation of SQL has its own peculiarities, however, and the authors have been diligent in ensuring that the generic material was customized for Sybase when appropriate. Sybase concepts such as stored procedures and triggers are well integrated with the more general information, and the SQL version is Sybase’s Transact-SQL. Beyond the generic material, many chapters specifically address Sybase. The first three chapters, on relational and client/server concepts, are specific to the Sybase environment. Part 3 contains eight chapters that provide a substantive overview of Sybase products. One chapter covers Embedded SQL, which is fairly standard, and one chapter addresses the Open Client C Library, which is unique to Sybase. Another chapter presents the Data Workbench, and three chapters are devoted to the Application Programmers Toolkit (APT).

This book offers the best of both worlds in two ways: generality and the level of the material. First, it provides a lot of generic information about relational databases and thus is of interest to database professionals, whether or not they are currently using Sybase. At the same time, it provides an enormous amount of Sybase-specific information and thus is of interest to Sybase users even if they are already familiar with the basics of relational databases. Second, the authors clearly explain many tricky relational concepts, supporting them with lots of examples. Hence the book is readable (with some minor effort) by practitioners who are new to databases. At the same time, the treatment of the concepts and some of the Sybase internals has substantial depth, so the book is also of value to seasoned professionals.

McGoveran and Date have done an excellent job on this book and have satisfied an important need. I recommend this book highly for all Sybase users. I also recommend it for other database users who may wish to know more about Sybase. Finally, I recommend this book for an introductory course in relational databases where students have ready access to a Sybase SQL server. After all those accolades, does this book have no flaws? As with many of Date’s other books, the density of the material makes reading a little more difficult than the average reader would expect. The quality of the material makes the effort worthwhile, however.