Tutorial: Write Transact-SQL statements
Applies to: 
SQL Server
Azure SQL Database
Azure Synapse Analytics
Analytics Platform System (PDW)
Note
The Get Started Querying with Transact-SQL learning path provides more in-depth content, along with practical examples.
Welcome to the Writing Transact-SQL Statements tutorial. This tutorial is intended for users who are new to writing SQL statements. It helps new users get started by reviewing some basic statements for creating tables and inserting data. This tutorial uses Transact-SQL, the Microsoft implementation of the SQL standard.
This tutorial is intended as a brief introduction to the Transact-SQL language and not as a replacement for a Transact-SQL class. The statements in this tutorial are intentionally simple, and aren't meant to represent the complexity found in a typical production database.
Note
If you are a beginner you might find it easier to use SQL Server Management Studio instead of writing Transact-SQL statements.
Find more information
To find more information about any specific statement, either search for the statement by name, or use the contents to browse the language elements listed alphabetically under Transact-SQL Reference (Database Engine). Another good strategy for finding information is to search for key words that are related to the subject matter you are interested in. For example, if you want to know how to return a part of a date (such as the month), search the index for dates [SQL Server], and then select dateparts. This takes you to the article DATEPART (Transact-SQL). As another example, to find out how to work with strings, search for string functions. This takes you to the article String Functions (Transact-SQL).
What you will learn
This tutorial shows you how to create a database, create a table in the database, insert data into the table, update the data, read the data, delete the data, and then delete the table. You will create views and stored procedures and configure a user to the database and the data.
This tutorial is divided into three lessons:
Lesson 1: Creating Database Objects
In this lesson, you create a database, create a table in the database, insert data into the table, update the data, and read the data.
Lesson 2: Configuring Permissions on Database Objects
In this lesson, you create a login and user. You will also create a view and a stored procedure, and then grant the user permission to the stored procedure.
Lesson 3: Deleting Database Objects
In this lesson, you remove access to data, delete data from a table, delete the table, and then delete the database.
Requirements
To complete this tutorial, you don't have to know the SQL language, but you should understand basic database concepts such as tables. During this tutorial, you will create a database and create a Windows user. These tasks require a high level of permissions; therefore, you should log in to the computer as an administrator.
Your system must have the following installed:
Any edition of SQL Server.
Next steps
The next article teaches you how to create database objects.
Go to the next article to learn more: