What are the differences between MSSQL, T-SQL, and SQL

Question

I know enough about SQL to get my job done but reading different articles I see T-SQL, MSSQL, and SQL. Are they all the same? What are the m,ajor differences between the three?

I know SQL is an ANSI standard. What about the other two?

Answer 1

T-SQL is shorthand for Transact-SQL, which is Microsoft's SQL dialect, whereas MSSQL usually refers to the SQL Server engine itself.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as "MSSQL". This is an abbreviation used instead of typing "SQL Server". This makes it harder to find questions and answers about SQL Server, and also gets confused with "M**y**SQL".

Answer 3

SQL is the basic ANSI standard for accessing data in a relational database. When you see "MSSQL" it is referring to Microsoft SQL Server, which is the entire database architecture and not a language. T-SQL is the proprietary form of SQL used by Microsoft SQL Server. It includes special functions like cast, convert, date(), etc. that are not part of the ANSI standard.

You will also see things like plSQL, which is Oracle's version of SQL, and there are others as well (mySQL has its own version, for example, and Microsoft Access uses Jet SQL.)

It is important to note the the ANSI standard for SQL has different releases (for example, 92 or 99, representing the year it was released.). Different database engines will advertise themselves as "mostly ANSI-92" compliant or "fully ANSI-99" compliant, etc, and any exceptions will usually be documented.

So although "SQL is SQL", every engine uses its own "flavor" of it, and you do have to do a little reading on the particular platform before you just dive in.

A further note - the SQL extensions, like T-SQL, are generally considered full-fledged programming languages, complete with looping, if/then, case statements, etc. SQL itself is limited to simply querying and updating data and is not considered a true programming language.

Wikipedia has a decent article for an overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL

Answer 4

It depends in what context those terms are being used.

They might mean exactly the same or have a slightly different meaning in some situations.

• T-SQL - dialect of SQL language used in Microsoft Sql Server
• MSSQL - Microsoft SQL Server software
• SQL - Structured Query Language - depending on the context it might mean the sql language itself, sql database or sql database server of any kind.