C HAPTER – 8 : I NTRODUCTION TO S TRUCTURED Q UERY L ANGUAGE (SQL)

MYSQL: MySQL is a Relational Database Management System. It was originally founded and developed in
Sweden by David Axmark, Allan Larsson and Michael Widenius.
Characteristics of MySQL:
1. Cost: It is released under an open–source license and hence required no cost or payment for its usage.
2. Speed: It has superior speed. It is easy to use and is reliable.
3. Ease of Use: It is a simple database system. It can be easily managed from the command line. Several
graphical interfaces are also available.
4. Query Language Support: Standard SQL commands are understandable to MySQL.
5. Data Types: It supports many data types to support different types of data. It also supports fixed–length
and variable–length records.
6. Security: It offers privilege and password system that is very flexible and secure. Passwords are secure
because all password traffic is encrypted at the time of connecting to a server.
7. Scalability and Limits: It can handle large databases. Some real life MySQL databases contain 50
million records, some have up to 60,000 tables and about 500,00,00,000 rows.
8. Connectivity: Clients can connect to MySQL server easily

CREATING AND USING A DATABASE:

To create a database the CREATE DATABASE command is used, as follows.
Syntax : CREATE DATABASE <Database_Name>;
Ex : CREATE DATABASE School;
The above statement creates a database with the name School. To work with this database this database
should be opened using USE statement, as follows
Syntax : USE <Database_Name>;
Ex : USE School;

VIEWING TABLES OF A DATABASE:

To see the tables present in a database, the statement
SHOW TABLES;
can be used.

Data Types:
Commonly used data types available in MySQL are,
A normal–sized integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable
INT range is from –2147483648 to 2147483647. If unsigned, the allowable range is
from 0 to 4294967295. Each INT value occupies 4 bytes of storage
Represents a floating point number. M is the total number of digits, and D is the
DECIMAL(M, D)
number of digits after decimal point.
FLOAT Holds numbers with decimal points. Each float value occupies 4 bytes
DATE A date in YYYY–MM–DD format, between 1000–01–01 and 9999–12–31
A fixed–length string between 0 and 255 characters in length. M is the length.
CHAR(M)
Providing M is optional and its default value is 1
A variable–length string between 0 and 65535 characters in length. Providing M
VARCHAR(M)
is compulsory

Difference between CHAR and VARCHAR:

The difference between CHAR and VARCHAR is that CHAR is of fixed–length and VARCHAR is of
variable length.
When a column is given data type as CHAR(n), then all values stored in that column have this length, i.e.
n bytes. If a value is shorter than this length n then blanks are added, but the size of the value remains n bytes.
VARCHAR specifies a variable length string. When a column is given data type as VARCHAR(n), then
the maximum size of a value is n bytes. Each value that is stored in this column stores exactly as given, no blanks
are added if the length is shorter than maximum length. However, if the maximum length is exceeded than an
error message will be displayed.
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Constraints: Constraints are certain types of restrictions on the data values that an attribute can have. They are
used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of data.
Constraint Description
Ensures that a column cannot have NULL values where NULL means
NOT NULL missing/ unknown/not applicable value.
UNIQUE Ensures that all the values in a column are distinct / unique.

DEFAULT A default value specified for the column if no value is provided.

PRIMARY KEY The column which can uniquely identify each row or record in a table.
The column which refers to value of an attribute defined as primary key in
FOREIGN KEY another table.

CREATING A TABLE:
A table in the database can be created using CREATE TABLE command, as follows

Syntax : CREATE TABLE <TableName> (<ColumnName1> <DataType1>, <ColumnName2>

<DataType2>, ……., <ColumnNameN> <DataTypeN>);
Ex : CREATE TABLE STUDENT (RollNo INTEGER, Name VARCHAR(15), Class CHAR(3),
DOB DATE);

 SQL commands are not case sensitive. For example, the command CREATE can also be provided as
Create or create etc
 While giving name to a table it should be relevant to the data that it holds

INSERTING DATA INTO A TABLE:

INSERT INTO command can be used to insert rows of data into a table. Its usage is as follows

Syntax : INSERT INTO <TableName> (<ColumnName1>, <ColumnName2>, ….., <ColumnNameN>)

VALUES (<Value1>, <Value2>, <Value3>, ………<ValueN>);
Ex : INSERT INTO STUDENT (RollNo, Name, Class, DOB) VALUES(154, ‘Rajesh’, ‘11c’,
‘1996–04–05’);
Ex : INSERT INTO STUDENT (RollNo, Name, Class) VALUES (189, ‘Kiran’, ‘12c’);
( In this case the value NULL will be assigned to the field DOB )
However while providing data for all the column elements the column names need not be provided.
Syntax : INSERT INTO <TableName> VALUES (<Value1>, <Value2>, <Value3>, ………<ValueN>);
Ex : INSERT INTO STUDENT VALUES(154, ‘Rajesh’, ‘11c’, ‘1996–04–05’);

RETRIEVING (DISPLAYING) DATA OF A TABLE:

The SELECT command is used to display data of a table. It is also possible to display the filtered data
from the table.

To Display all the rows and columns of Table:

Syntax : SELECT * FROM <TableName>;
Ex : SELECT * FROM Student;

To Display selected Columns and all Rows:

Syntax : SELECT <ColumnName1>, <ColumnName2>, …. FROM <TableName>;
Ex : SELECT Name, DOB FROM Student;

To Display selected Columns and selected Rows:

Syntax : SELECT <ColumnName1>, <ColumnName2>, …. FROM <TableName> WHERE
Condition:
Ex : SELECT Name, DOB FROM Student WHERE Class = ‘11C’;

Eliminating Redundant Data with DISTINCT Keyword:

Syntax : SELECT DISTINCT <ColumnName1>, <ColumnName2>,… FROM <TableName>;
Ex : SELECT DISTINCT Class FROM Student;
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DISPLAYING CURRENT DATABASE:

To display the name of the present working database, the following statement can be used
SELECT DATABASE( );

CATEGORIES OF SQL COMMANDS:

1. Data Definition Language (DDL) Commands: The SQL commands used for creating a database,
deleting a database, providing keys such as primary key, foreign key etc on tables are known as DDL
commands. A few examples for DDL commands in SQL are:
a. CREATE DATABASE – Creates a new database
b. CREATE TABLE – Creates a new table
c. ALTER TABLE – Modifies a table
d. DROP TABLE – Deletes a table
These commands will work with table structure not on table data directly (indirectly may act on table
data)

2. Data Manipulation Language (DML) Commands: The Query and Update commands on tables are
referred as DML commands. A few examples for DML commands in SQL are:
a. SELECT – Extracts data from a table
b. UPDATE – Updates data in a table
c. DELETE – Deletes data from a table
d. INSERT INTO – Inserts new data into a table

3. Data Control Language (DCL) / Transaction Control Language (TCL) Commands: The commands
which are used to control the access to databases and tables are referred as Data Control Language or
Transaction Control Language commands. A few examples for TCL commands in SQL are:
a. GRANT – To give rights of transaction to a user
b. REVOKE – To take back rights of transaction from a user
c. COMMIT – To make changes permanent
d. ROLLBACK – To undo changes of transaction
VIEWING STRUCTURE OF A TABLE:
To see the structure of a table that is already created, the DESCRIBE or DESC command can be used as
follows
Syntax : DESCRIBE <TableName>; (Or) DESC <TableName>;
Ex : DESC Student;
CHANGING STRUCTURE OF A TABLE USING ALTER TABLE COMMAND:
An existing table’s structure can be changed by using ALTER TABLE command.
Adding an attribute to a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> ADD <ColumnName> DataType;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student ADD Grade CHAR(1);
Removing an attribute of a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> DROP <ColumnName>;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student DROP DOB;
Modifying datatype of an attribute of a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> MODIFY <ColumnName> <New_Definition>;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student Class VARCHAR(4);
Add Primary Key constraint to a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> ADD PRIMARY KEY(ColumnName);
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student ADD PRIMARY KEY(RollNo);
Removing Primary Key from a table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> DROP PRIMARY KEY;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student DROP PRIMARY KEY;
Adding Foreign Key constraint to a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> ADD FOREIGN KEY(ColumnName) REFERENCES
<Referenced_TableName>(ColumnName);
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student ADD FOREIGN KEY(RollNo) REFERENCES
Marks(RollNo);
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Adding UNIQUE constraint to a Table:

Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> ADD UNIQUE(ColumnName);
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student ADD UNIQUE(RollNo);
Adding DEFAULT constraint to a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> MODIFY ColumnName DATATYPE DEFAULT
Default_Value;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student MODIFY Gender VARCHAR(10) DEFAULT ‘Male’;
Adding NOT NULL constraint to a Table:
Syntax : ALTER TABLE <TableName> MODIFY ColumnName DATATYPE NOT NULL;
Ex : ALTER TABLE Student MODIFY Gender VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL;

USING ARITHMETIC OPERATORS WITH SELECT:

Arithmetic operators perform mathematical calculations. In SQL the following arithmetic operators are
used
Operator Meaning
+ Addition
– Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
% Modulus Division (Remainder Division)

Ex : SELECT Marks1+5 FROM Student;

Ex : SELECT 5*4+2;

USING COLUMN ALIAS:

When arithmetic expressions are used in SELECT statement the Column name will be the expression.
For example, for the query
SELECT Marks1+5 FROM Student;
the column name of the output is Marks1+5.

This column name can be changed (aliased) as follows

SELECT Marks1+5 AS “Modified Marks” FROM Student;
Here the keyword AS is optional

PUTTING TEXT IN QUERY OUTPUT:

The text can be put in a query by providing as a string constant
Ex : SELECT RollNo, Name, ‘has secured marks’, Marks1 FROM Student;

RELATIONAL OPERATORS:
The relational operators used in MySQL are as follows
Operator Meaning
< Less Than
<= Less Than or Equal to
> Greater Than
>= Greater Than or Equal to
= Equal to
!= (Or) <> Not Equal to

To Display all Columns and selected Rows:

Syntax : SELECT * FROM <TableName> WHERE Condition;
Ex : SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Class=’11c’;
LOGICAL OPERATORS:
The logical operators available in MySQL are
Operator Meaning
AND If both conditions are true output results to true
OR If either condition is true output results to true
NOT Makes the input True as False and vice–versa
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CONDITION BASED ON RANGE (USING BETWEEN):

The BETWEEN operator is used for range search. It is used along with WHERE clause.
Ex: SELECT RollNo, Name, Marks1 FROM Student WHERE Marks1 BETWEEN 70 AND 80;
The above query will displays the RollNo, Name, Marks1 from the Student table whose value of Marks1
value will be between 70 and 80, both inclusive.

The NOT BETWEEN can be used to negate the output of BETWEEN

Ex: SELECT RollNo, Name, Marks1 FROM Student WHERE Marks1 NOT BETWEEN 70 AND 80;

The above query will displays the RollNo, Name, Marks1 from the Student table whose value of Marks1
values are not be between 70 and 80, both exclusive

CONDITION BASED ON A LIST (USING IN):

The IN operator select values that match any value in the given list of values. To display data of Students
whose marks are 68 or 76 or 78, we can use the IN operator like this:
Ex: SELECT RollNo, Name, Marks1 FROM Student WHERE Marks1 IN (68, 76, 78);
Ex: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE State IN ('DELHI', 'MUMBAI', 'UP');

The NOT IN operator can be used to negate the output of IN operator

Ex: SELECT RollNo, Name, Marks1 FROM Student WHERE Marks1 NOT IN (68, 76, 78);
Ex: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE State NOT IN ('DELHI', 'MUMBAI', 'UP');

PATTERN MATCHING (USING LIKE CLAUSE):

LIKE clause is used to fetch data which matches the specified pattern from a table. The LIKE clause tells
the DBMS that we won't be doing a strict comparison like = or < or > but we will be using wildcards in our
comparison.
Syntax: SELECT <column name>, [<column name>…] WHERE <column name> LIKE Pattern;
MySQL has % and _ wild card characters. The percent (%) symbol is used to represent any sequence of
zero or more characters. The underscore ( _ ) symbol is used to represent a single character.
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name LIKE '%Sen';
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name LIKE 'G%';
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name LIKE 'G%b';
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name LIKE '%Sen%';
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name LIKE 'A_ _ _ _ Ali';
A few more general examples are,
 'Am%' matches any string starting with Am.
 '%Singh%' matches any string containing 'Singh'
 '%a' matches any string ending with 'a'
 '_ _ _' matches any string that is exactly 3 characters long.
 '_ _ %' matches any string that has at least 2 characters.
 '_ _ _ g' matches any string that is 4 characters long with any 3 characters in the beginning but 'g' as the
4th character.

The keyword NOT LIKE is used to select the rows that do not match the specified pattern. To display
rows from the table Student that have names not starting with 'G', she enters:
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name NOT LIKE 'G%';
PRECEDENCE OF OPERATORS:
Precedence is the order in which different operators are evaluated in the same expression. When
evaluating an expression containing multiple operators, operators with higher precedence are evaluated before
evaluating those with lower precedence. Operators with equal precedence are evaluated from left to right
within the expression. Parenthesis can be used to change the preference of an operator. Various operators in
descending order of precedence (top to bottom) are listed below:
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!
– (unary minus)
^
*, /, DIV, %, MOD
-, +
=, <=>, >=, >, <=, <, <>, !=, IS, LIKE, IN
BETWEEN,
NOT
&&, AND
||, OR

NULL:
NULL means a value that is unavailable, unassigned, unknown or inapplicable. NULL is not the same as
zero or a space or any other character. In a table NULL is searched for using IS NULL keywords.

Ex: SELECT * FROM Student WHERE Name IS NULL;

Ex: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE Commission IS NULL;
NOT NULL values in a table can be searched using IS NOT NULL.
Ex: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE Commission IS NOT NULL;

SORTING THE RESULTS (USING ORDER BY):

The result obtained using SELECT statement is displayed in the order in which the rows were entered in
the table using the INSERT INTO statement. The results of the SELECT statement can be displayed in the
ascending or descending values of a single column or multiple columns using ORDER BY clause.

Syntax: SELECT <column name>, [<column name>…] [WHERE <Condition list>] ORDER BY
<column name>;
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student ORDER BY Marks1;
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student ORDER BY Name;
To display data in descending order, DESC keyword is used in ORDER BY clause. However it is not
necessary to specify ASC for ascending order as it is the default order.
Ex: SELECT * FROM Student ORDER BY Marks1 DESC;

SORTING ON COLUMN ALIAS:

If a Column alias is defined on a column, we can use it for displaying rows in an ascending or descending
order using ORDER BY clause:
Ex: SELECT Name, Marks1 AS Total FROM Student ORDER BY Total;

UPDATE STATEMENT:
The UPDATE statement is used to update the data of the table. WHERE clause is also applicable to this
statement.
Syntax: UPDATE <table_name> SET <column name> = <value>, [ <column name> = <value>, …]
[WHERE <condn>];
Ex: UPDATE Student SET Marks1 = 94;

The above statement sets the Column Marks1 value of all rows to 94 of the table Student. To apply this to
specific rows, WHERE clause can be applied along with UPDATE statement
Ex: UPDATE Student SET Marks1 = 94 WHERE name = 'Monica Rana';

DELETE STATEMENT:
DELETE statement is used to delete rows from a table. DELETE removes the entire row, not the
individual column values.

Syntax: DELETE FROM < tablename> [ Where < condn>];

Ex: DELETE FROM Student WHERE Rollno = 14;

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DELETE statement can be used to delete all rows of the table also. The following statement can be used
to delete all the rows from Student table.

Ex: DELETE from Student;

CONSTRAINTS:
A constraint is a rule that is applied on the columns of tables to ensure data integrity and consistency.
1. NOT NULL Constraint:

When this constraint is set to a column, it ensures that the value ‘NULL’ cannot be entered in the
specified column in any row.

Ex: CREATE TABLE Student (RollNo INT(5) NOT NULL, Name VARCHAR(25));

2. UNIQUE Constraint:
When this constraint is set to a column, it ensures that the duplicate values cannot be entered in
the specified column.

Ex: CREATE TABLE Student (RollNo INT(5) UNIQUE, Name VARCHAR(25));

3. PRIMARY KEY Constraint:

This constraint sets a column or a group of columns as the Primary Key of a table. Therefore,
NULLs and duplicate values in this column are not accepted.

Ex: CREATE TABLE Student (RollNo INT(5) PRIMARY KEY, Name

VARCHAR(25));

4. FOREIGN KEY Constraint:

Data will be accepted in this column, if same data value exists in a column in another related
table. This other related table name and column name are specified while creating the foreign
key constraint

Ex: CREATE TABLE Result (RollNo INT(5), Marks INT(3), FOREIGN

KEY(RollNo) REFERENCES Student(RollNo));

5. ENUM Constraint:
This constraint defines a set of string values as the column domain. So any value in this column
will be from the specified values only.

Ex: CREATE TABLE Person (Name VARCHAR(40),

Gender ENUM(‘Male’, ‘Female’));

Now, while inserting rows into the table Person, for the field Gender the value either ‘Male’ or
‘Female’ only is to be entered. Attempting entering value other than this will results in error

6. DEFAULT Constraint:
This constraint is used to assign a default value when no value is provided to attribute.

Ex: CREATE TABLE Person (Name VARCHAR(40), Gender VARCHAR(2)

DEFAULT ‘Male’);

Now, while inserting data into the table if value for the gender is not provided then the value
‘Male’ will be assigned.