Understand SQL query language

  • 4 minutes

Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL uses the already popular Structured Query Language (SQL) syntax to perform queries over semi-structured data. If you have performed queries in database platforms like MySQL or SQL Server, then you may already have some of the tools necessary to write queries in Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL.

For this module, we will focus on a fictional container of products with the following structure:

Property Value
id String | unique identifier
categoryId String | partition key
categoryName String
sku String
description String
price Number
tags Array | [ String id, String name ]

Here is an example of a JSON object that would be in this container:

{
    "id": "86FD9250-4BD5-42D2-B941-1C1865A6A65E",
    "categoryId": "F3FBB167-11D8-41E4-84B4-5AAA92B1E737",
    "categoryName": "Components, Touring Frames",
    "sku": "FR-T67U-58",
    "name": "LL Touring Frame - Blue, 58",
    "description": "The product called \"LL Touring Frame - Blue, 58\"",
    "price": 333.42,
    "tags": [
        {
            "id": "764C1CC8-2E5F-4EF5-83F6-8FF7441290B3",
            "name": "Tag-190"
        },
        {
            "id": "765EF7D7-331C-42C0-BF23-A3022A723BF7",
            "name": "Tag-191"
        }
    ]
}