Chapter 3: Introduction To SQL

Chapter 3: Introduction to SQL
Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
Outline
 Overview of The SQL Query Language
 Data Definition
 Basic Query Structure
 Additional Basic Operations
 Set Operations
 Null Values
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 3.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
History
 IBM Sequel language developed as part of System R project at the
IBM San Jose Research Laboratory
 Renamed Structured Query Language (SQL)
 ANSI and ISO standard SQL:
 SQL-86
 SQL-89
 SQL-92
 SQL:1999 (language name became Y2K compliant!)
 SQL:2003
 Commercial systems offer most, if not all, SQL-92 features, plus
varying feature sets from later standards and special proprietary
features.
 Not all examples here may work on your particular system.
Data Definition Language
The SQL data-definition language (DDL) allows the specification
of information about relations, including:
 The schema for each relation.
 The domain of values associated with each attribute.
 Integrity constraints
 And as we will see later, also other information such as
 The set of indices to be maintained for each relations.
 Security and authorization information for each relation.
 The physical storage structure of each relation on disk.
Domain Types in SQL
 char(n). Fixed length character string, with user-specified length n.
 varchar(n). Variable length character strings, with user-specified
maximum length n.
 int. Integer (a finite subset of the integers that is machine-dependent).
 smallint. Small integer (a machine-dependent subset of the integer
domain type).
 numeric(p,d). Fixed point number, with user-specified precision of p
digits, with d digits to the right of decimal point. (ex., numeric(3,1),
allows 44.5 to be stores exactly, but not 444.5 or 0.32)
 real, double precision. Floating point and double-precision floating
point numbers, with machine-dependent precision.
 float(n). Floating point number, with user-specified precision of at least
n digits.
 More are covered in Chapter 4.
Create Table Construct
 An SQL relation is defined using the create table command:
create table r (A1 D1, A2 D2, ..., An Dn,
(integrity-constraint1),
...,
(integrity-constraintk))
 r is the name of the relation
 each Ai is an attribute name in the schema of relation r
 Di is the data type of values in the domain of attribute Ai
 Example:
create table instructor (
ID char(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
Integrity Constraints in Create Table
 not null
 primary key (A1, ..., An )
 foreign key (Am, ..., An ) references r
Example:
create table instructor (

ID char(5),
name varchar(20) not null,
salary numeric(8,2),
primary key (ID),
foreign key (dept_name) references department);
primary key declaration on an attribute automatically ensures not null
And a Few More Relation Definitions
 create table student (
ID varchar(5),
name varchar(20) not null,
tot_cred numeric(3,0),
primary key (ID),
 create table takes (

ID varchar(5),
course_id varchar(8),
sec_id varchar(8),
semester varchar(6),
year numeric(4,0),
grade varchar(2),
primary key (ID, course_id, sec_id, semester, year) ,
foreign key (ID) references student,
foreign key (course_id, sec_id, semester, year) references section);
 Note: sec_id can be dropped from primary key above, to ensure a
student cannot be registered for two sections of the same course in the
same semester
And more still
 create table course (
course_id varchar(8),
title varchar(50),
credits numeric(2,0),
primary key (course_id),
Updates to tables
 Insert
 insert into instructor values (‘10211’, ’Smith’, ’Biology’, 66000);
 Delete
 Remove all tuples from the student relation
 delete from student
 Drop Table
 drop table r
 Alter
 alter table r add A D
 where A is the name of the attribute to be added to relation r
and D is the domain of A.
 All exiting tuples in the relation are assigned null as the value for
the new attribute.
 alter table r drop A
 where A is the name of an attribute of relation r
 Dropping of attributes not supported by many databases.
Basic Query Structure
 A typical SQL query has the form:
select A1, A2, ..., An

from r1, r2, ..., rm
where P
 Ai represents an attribute
 Ri represents a relation
 P is a predicate.
 The result of an SQL query is a relation.
The select Clause
 The select clause lists the attributes desired in the result of a query
 corresponds to the projection operation of the relational algebra
 Example: find the names of all instructors:
select name
from instructor
 NOTE: SQL names are case insensitive (i.e., you may use upper- or
lower-case letters.)
 E.g., Name ≡ NAME ≡ name
 Some people use upper case wherever we use bold font.
The select Clause (Cont.)
 SQL allows duplicates in relations as well as in query results.
 To force the elimination of duplicates, insert the keyword distinct
after select.
 Find the department names of all instructors, and remove duplicates
select distinct dept_name
from instructor
 The keyword all specifies that duplicates should not be removed.
select all dept_name

from instructor
 An asterisk in the select clause denotes “all attributes”
select *
from instructor
 An attribute can be a literal with no from clause
select ‘437’
 Results is a table with one column and a single row with value “437”
 Can give the column a name using:
select ‘437’ as FOO
 An attribute can be a literal with from clause
select ‘A’
from instructor
 Result is a table with one column and N rows (number of tuples in the
instructors table), each row with value “A”
 The select clause can contain arithmetic expressions involving the
operation, +, –, , and /, and operating on constants or attributes of
tuples.
 The query:
select ID, name, salary/12
from instructor
would return a relation that is the same as the instructor relation,
except that the value of the attribute salary is divided by 12.
 Can rename “salary/12” using the as clause:
select ID, name, salary/12 as monthly_salary
The where Clause
 The where clause specifies conditions that the result must satisfy
 Corresponds to the selection predicate of the relational algebra.
 To find all instructors in Comp. Sci. dept
select name
from instructor
where dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.'
 Comparison results can be combined using the logical connectives
and, or, and not
 To find all instructors in Comp. Sci. dept with salary > 80000
select name
from instructor
where dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.' and salary > 80000
 Comparisons can be applied to results of arithmetic expressions.
The from Clause
 The from clause lists the relations involved in the query
 Corresponds to the Cartesian product operation of the relational
algebra.
 Find the Cartesian product instructor X teaches
select 
from instructor, teaches
 generates every possible instructor – teaches pair, with all attributes
from both relations.
 For common attributes (e.g., ID), the attributes in the resulting table
are renamed using the relation name (e.g., instructor.ID)
 Cartesian product not very useful directly, but useful combined with
where-clause condition (selection operation in relational algebra).
Cartesian Product
instructor teaches
Examples
 Find the names of all instructors who have taught some course and the
course_id
 select name, course_id
from instructor , teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID
 Find the names of all instructors in the Art department who have taught
some course and the course_id
from instructor , teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID and instructor. dept_name = ‘Art’
The Rename Operation
 The SQL allows renaming relations and attributes using the as clause:
old-name as new-name
 Find the names of all instructors who have a higher salary than
some instructor in ‘Comp. Sci’.
 select distinct T.name
from instructor as T, instructor as S
where T.salary > S.salary and S.dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.’
 Keyword as is optional and may be omitted

instructor as T ≡ instructor T
Cartesian Product Example
 Relation emp-super
person supervisor
Bob Alice
Mary Susan
Alice David
David Mary
 Find the supervisor of “Bob”

 Find the supervisor of the supervisor of “Bob”
 Find ALL the supervisors (direct and indirect) of “Bob
String Operations
 SQL includes a string-matching operator for comparisons on character
strings. The operator like uses patterns that are described using two
special characters:
 percent ( % ). The % character matches any substring.
 underscore ( _ ). The _ character matches any character.
 Find the names of all instructors whose name includes the substring
“dar”.
select name
from instructor
where name like '%dar%'
 Match the string “100%”
like ‘100 \%' escape '\'
in that above we use backslash (\) as the escape character.
String Operations (Cont.)
 Patterns are case sensitive.
 Pattern matching examples:
 ‘Intro%’ matches any string beginning with “Intro”.
 ‘%Comp%’ matches any string containing “Comp” as a substring.
 ‘_ _ _’ matches any string of exactly three characters.
 ‘_ _ _ %’ matches any string of at least three characters.
 SQL supports a variety of string operations such as

 concatenation (using “||”)
 converting from upper to lower case (and vice versa)
 finding string length, extracting substrings, etc.
Ordering the Display of Tuples
 List in alphabetic order the names of all instructors
select distinct name
from instructor
order by name
 We may specify desc for descending order or asc for ascending
order, for each attribute; ascending order is the default.
 Example: order by name desc
 Can sort on multiple attributes
 Example: order by dept_name, name
Where Clause Predicates
 SQL includes a between comparison operator
 Example: Find the names of all instructors with salary between $90,000
and $100,000 (that is, $90,000 and $100,000)
 select name
from instructor
where salary between 90000 and 100000
 Tuple comparison
from instructor, teaches
where (instructor.ID, dept_name) = (teaches.ID, ’Biology’);
Set Operations
 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 or in Spring 2010

(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Fall’ and year = 2009)
union
(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Spring’ and year = 2010)
 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 and in Spring 2010
intersect
 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 but not in Spring 2010
except
Set Operations (Cont.)
 Find the salaries of all instructors that are less than the largest salary.
 select distinct T.salary
from instructor as T, instructor as S
where T.salary < S.salary
 Find all the salaries of all instructors

 select distinct salary
from instructor
 Find the largest salary of all instructors.

 (select “second query” )
except
(select “first query”)
Set Operations (Cont.)
 Set operations union, intersect, and except
 Each of the above operations automatically eliminates duplicates
 To retain all duplicates use the corresponding multiset versions union
all, intersect all and except all.
 Suppose a tuple occurs m times in r and n times in s, then, it occurs:

 m + n times in r union all s
 min(m,n) times in r intersect all s
 max(0, m – n) times in r except all s
Null Values
 It is possible for tuples to have a null value, denoted by null, for
some of their attributes
 null signifies an unknown value or that a value does not exist.
 The result of any arithmetic expression involving null is null
 Example: 5 + null returns null
 The predicate is null can be used to check for null values.
 Example: Find all instructors whose salary is null.
select name
from instructor
where salary is null
Null Values and Three Valued Logic
 Three values – true, false, unknown
 Any comparison with null returns unknown
 Example: 5 < null or null <> null or null = null
 Three-valued logic using the value unknown:
 OR: (unknown or true) = true,
(unknown or false) = unknown
(unknown or unknown) = unknown
 AND: (true and unknown) = unknown,
(false and unknown) = false,
(unknown and unknown) = unknown
 NOT: (not unknown) = unknown
 “P is unknown” evaluates to true if predicate P evaluates to
unknown
 Result of where clause predicate is treated as false if it evaluates to
unknown

Chapter 3: Introduction To SQL

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 3: Introduction To SQL

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 3: Introduction To SQL

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 3: Introduction to SQL

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

create table instructor (

primary key declaration on an attribute automatically ensures not null

 create table takes (

select A1, A2, ..., An

select all dept_name

 Comparisons can be applied to results of arithmetic expressions.

 Keyword as is optional and may be omitted

 Find the supervisor of “Bob”

 SQL supports a variety of string operations such as

 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 or in Spring 2010

 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 and in Spring 2010

 Find all the salaries of all instructors

 Find the largest salary of all instructors.

 Suppose a tuple occurs m times in r and n times in s, then, it occurs:

You might also like