Query questions

This tutorial covers creating a query using LibreOffice’s in-built GUI tools; however, these queries can only display and filter information you’ve requested. They don’t permit you to edit or remove the returned records or add new ones.

This is because what you’ve created is called a Select query. In order to add new records you need an Insert query, an Update one to edit existing records or a Delete query to remove them. MicrosoftAccess converts will be disappointed to learn that there’s no similar method for generating any of those from the Queries menu.

For those occasions when you need make a bulk change to your database and only those kinds of query will do, head to Tools>SQL..., write what you want to do as a statement and then click Execute. For example, to add Charles Dickens as a new author in the BookCollection database, you would use the following: INSERT INTO “Authors” ("FirstName”, “SecondName”, “Nationality") VALUES ('Charles’, ‘Dickens’, ‘British');

You can also view the underlying code for any existing query by right-clicking on it, and create a new select query using an SQL (Structured Query Language) statement via Insert >Query (SQL View). For more details on coding your own queries, take a look at this handy online guide: http://bit.ly/SQL-advice 2.