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Quickstart: Use Azure Data Studio to connect and query SQL Server

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This quickstart shows how to use Azure Data Studio to connect to SQL Server, and then use Transact-SQL (T-SQL) statements to create the TutorialDB used in Azure Data Studio tutorials.

Prerequisites

To complete this quickstart, you need Azure Data Studio, and access to a SQL Server instance.

If you don't have access to a SQL Server, select your platform from the following links (make sure you remember your SQL Login and Password!):

Connect to a SQL Server

  1. Start Azure Data Studio.

  2. The first time you run Azure Data Studio the Welcome page should open. If you don't see the Welcome page, select Help > Welcome. Select New Connection to open the Connection pane:

    Screenshot showing the New Connection icon.

  3. This article uses SQL Login, but Windows Authentication is supported. Fill in the fields as follows:

    • Server Name: Enter server name here. For example, localhost.
    • Authentication Type: SQL Login
    • User name: User name for the SQL Server
    • Password: Password for the SQL Server
    • Database Name: <Default>
    • Server Group: <Default>

    Screenshot showing the New Connection screen.

Create a database

The following steps create a database named TutorialDB:

  1. Right-click on your server, localhost, and select New Query.

  2. Paste the following snippet into the query window: and then select Run.

    USE master;
GO

IF NOT EXISTS (
      SELECT name
      FROM sys.databases
      WHERE name = N'TutorialDB'
      )
   CREATE DATABASE [TutorialDB];
GO

IF SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') > '12'
   ALTER DATABASE [TutorialDB] SET QUERY_STORE = ON;
GO

    After the query completes, the new TutorialDB appears in the list of databases. If you don't see it, right-click the Databases node and select Refresh.

    Screenshot showing how to create database.

Create a table

The query editor is still connected to the master database, but we want to create a table in the TutorialDB database.

  1. Change the connection context to TutorialDB:

    Screenshot showing how to change context.

  2. Paste the following snippet into the query window and select Run:

    Note

    You can append this too, or overwrite the previous query in the editor. Note that selecting Run executes only the query that is selected. If nothing is selected, selecting Run executes all queries in the editor.

    -- Create a new table called 'Customers' in schema 'dbo'
-- Drop the table if it already exists
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.Customers', 'U') IS NOT NULL
   DROP TABLE dbo.Customers;
GO

-- Create the table in the specified schema
CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (
   CustomerId INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, -- primary key column
   [Name] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
   [Location] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
   [Email] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
   );
GO

After the query completes, the new Customers table appears in the list of tables. You might need to right-click the TutorialDB > Tables node and select Refresh.

Insert rows

Paste the following snippet into the query window and select Run:

-- Insert rows into table 'Customers'
INSERT INTO dbo.Customers (
   [CustomerId],
   [Name],
   [Location],
   [Email]
)
VALUES
   (1, N'Orlando', N'Australia', N''),
   (2, N'Keith', N'India', N'keith0@adventure-works.com'),
   (3, N'Donna', N'Germany', N'donna0@adventure-works.com'),
   (4, N'Janet', N'United States', N'janet1@adventure-works.com')
GO

View the data returned by a query

Paste the following snippet into the query window and select Run:

-- Select rows from table 'Customers'
SELECT * FROM dbo.Customers;

Screenshot showing the results from the SELECT query.

Next steps

Now that you've successfully connected to SQL Server and run a query try out the Code editor tutorial.