Chapter 6: Basic SQL
Database Systems CS203
Week 04
17th-19th Sep-2018
By: Anam Qureshi
Outline
• SQL Data Definition and Data Types
• Specifying Constraints in SQL
• Basic Retrieval Queries in SQL
• INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE Statements in
SQL
• Additional Features of SQL
Basic SQL
•SQL language
Considered one of the major reasons for the
commercial success of relational databases
•SQL
The origin of SQL is relational predicate calculus called
tuple calculus (see Ch.8) which was proposed initially as
the language SQUARE.
SQL Actually comes from the word “SEQUEL” which was the
original term used in the paper: “SEQUEL TO SQUARE” by
Chamberlin and Boyce. IBM could not copyright that term, so they
abbreviated to SQL and copyrighted the term SQL.
Now popularly known as “Structured Query language”.
SQL is an informal or practical rendering of the
relational data model with syntax
SQL Data Definition, Data Types, Standards
•Terminology:
Table, row, and column used for relational model terms relation,
tuple, and attribute
•CREATE statement
Main SQL command for data definition
•The language has features for : Data definition,
Data Manipulation, Transaction control (Transact-
SQL, Ch. 20), Indexing (Ch.17), Security
specification (Grant and Revoke- see Ch.30),
Active databases (Ch.26), Multi-media (Ch.26),
Distributed databases (Ch.23) etc.
SQL Standards
•SQL has gone through many standards: starting with
SQL-86 or SQL 1.A. SQL-92 is referred to as SQL-2.
•Later standards (from SQL-1999) are divided into
core specification and specialized extensions. The
extensions are implemented for different applications –
such as data mining, data warehousing, multimedia
etc.
•SQL-2006 added XML features (Ch. 13); In 2008 they
added Object-oriented features (Ch. 12).
•SQL-3 is the current standard which started with SQL-
1999. It is not fully implemented in any RDBMS.
Schema and Catalog Concepts in SQL
•We cover the basic standard SQL syntax – there are
variations in existing RDBMS systems
•SQL schema
Identified by a schema name
Includes an authorization identifier and
descriptors for each element
•Schema elements include
Tables, constraints, views, domains, and
other constructs
•Each statement in SQL ends with a semicolon
Schema and Catalog Concepts in SQL
(cont’d.)
•CREATE SCHEMA statement
CREATE SCHEMA COMPANY
AUTHORIZATION ‘Jsmith’;
•Catalog
Named collection of schemas in an SQL
environment
•SQL also has the concept of a cluster of
catalogs.
The CREATE TABLE Command in SQL
•Specifying a new relation
Provide name of table
Specify attributes, their types and initial
constraints
•Can optionally specify schema:
CREATE TABLE COMPANY.EMPLOYEE
...
or
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE ...
The CREATE TABLE Command in SQL
(cont’d.)
•Base tables (base relations)
Relation and its tuples are actually
created and stored as a file by the DBMS
•Virtual relations (views)
Created through the CREATE VIEW
statement. Do not correspond to any
physical file.
COMPANY relational database schema
(Fig. 5.7)
SQL CREATE TABLE data definition statements for defining the
COMPANY schema from Figure 5.7 (Fig. 6.1)
SQL CREATE TABLE data definition statements for defining the
COMPANY schema from Figure 5.7 (Fig. 6.1)-continued
The CREATE TABLE Command in SQL
(cont’d.)
•Some foreign keys may cause errors
Specified either via:
Circular references
Or because they refer to a table that
has not yet been created
•DBA’s have ways to stop referential integrity
enforcement to get around this problem.
Attribute Data Types and Domains in
SQL
Numeric
Data Type
Floating Formatted
Integer
Point Numbers
DOUBLE
INTEGER INT SMALLINT FLOAT REAL Decimal(i,j) Numeric(i,j)
PRECISION
Attribute Data Types and Domains in
SQL
Character
String
CHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) CLOB
Large Text
Varying
Fixed Length Values
length
(KB,MB,GB)
Attribute Data Types and Domains in
SQL
Bit String
BIT(n) BIT VARYING(n) BLOB
Large Binary
Fixed Length Varying length
Values(Kb,Mb,Gb)
Attribute Data Types and Domains in
SQL
•Boolean Data Type
•True
•False
•NULL
•Time
•HH:MM:SS
•Date
•YYYY-MM-DD
•Multiple mapping functions available in RDBMSs to change date formats
•Timestamp
•TIMESTAMP ‘2014-09-27 09:12:47.648302’
•Interval
•Specifies a relative value that can be used to increment or decrement an
absolute value of a date, time, or timestamp
•DATE, TIME, Timestamp, INTERVAL data types can be cast or converted to
string formats for comparison
Attribute Data Types and Domains in
SQL
•Domain
Name used with the attribute specification
Makes it easier to change the data type for a domain
that is used by numerous attributes
Improves schema readability
Example:
CREATE DOMAIN SSN_TYPE AS CHAR(9);
•TYPE
User Defined Types (UDTs) are supported for object-
oriented applications. (See Ch.12) Uses the command:
CREATE TYPE
