Database Development Using SQL: Department of Information Technology

Department of Information technology
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT USING SQL

Table of Contents
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT..........................................................................................1 USING SQL.........................................................................................................................1 Table of Contents.................................................................................................................1 SQL Introduction.................................................................................................................2 SQL Syntax..........................................................................................................................3 SQL Select...........................................................................................................................5 SQL Where..........................................................................................................................7 SQL Order By....................................................................................................................10 SQL Top.............................................................................................................................11 SQL Distinct......................................................................................................................13 SQL In................................................................................................................................14 SQL Alias...........................................................................................................................17 SQL Inner Join...................................................................................................................18 SQL Outer Join..................................................................................................................19 SQL Insert..........................................................................................................................22 SQL Update.......................................................................................................................23 SQL Delete.........................................................................................................................25 SQL Functions...................................................................................................................26 SQL Count.........................................................................................................................27 SQL Create.........................................................................................................................29 SQL Create Database.........................................................................................................30 SQL Create Table..............................................................................................................32 SQL Create Index..............................................................................................................33 SQL Alter Table.................................................................................................................34 SQL Summary...................................................................................................................35 Microsoft Access Versus SQL Server...............................................................................37
Compiled By: Bhaskar Kapoor
SQL Introduction
About SQL
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is a language that enables you to work with a database. Using SQL, you can insert records, update records, and delete records. You can also create new database objects such as databases and tables. And you can drop (delete) them. More advanced features include creating stored procedures (self contained scripts), views (pre-made queries), and setting permissions on database objects (such as tables, stored procedures, and views). Although SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard, there are many different versions of SQL. Different database vendors have their own variations of the language. Having said this, to be in compliance with the ANSI standard, they need to at least support the major commands such as DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, WHERE etc. Also, you will find that many vendors have their own extensions to the language - features that are only supported in their database system. Furthermore, transact-SQL is an extension to the ANSI standard and provides extra functionality.
Using SQL
If you need to build a website with a database providing the content, you will generally need the following:
A server side scripting language (i.e. ColdFusion, PHP, ASP/.NET)
A database query language (i.e. SQL) A client side markup language and style sheets (i.e. HTML/CSS)
Although SQL can be quite involved, you can achieve a lot with a handful of SQL statements. When using SQL on a website, you will often find yourself either selecting a record, inserting a record, updating a record, or deleting a record. Fortunately, SQL has commands for performing each of these actions. The next lesson covers the SQL syntax basics.
SQL Syntax
The SQL syntax is quite an easy one to grasp. Most of the actions you need to perform are done with a SQL statement. Generally, a SQL statement begins by stating what to do (for example, "SELECT"), then states which object to do it to (for example, using the "FROM" clause).
SELECT * FROM Individual
It may also have a condition added to the end (for example, with a WHERE clause).
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer'
SQL is not case sensitive - the above examples could just have easily used all lowercase or all uppercase. Different programmers have their own preferences. For readability purposes, many SQL programmers prefer to use uppercase for SQL commands and lowercase for everything else.
The SQL syntax allows you to include line breaks at logical points without it breaking the statement. For example, the above example could have been written all on one line - or across 4 lines. Also, some database systems require that you use a semicolon at the end of each SQL statement (although this tutorial doesn't use the semicolon).
DML & DDL

SQL is divided into two main categories; Data Manipulation Language (DML), and Data Definition Language (DDL). An explanation follows.
Data Manipulation Language (DML)

DML enables you to work with the data that goes into the database. DML is used to insert, select, update, and delete records in the database. Many of your SQL statements will begin with one of the following commands:

SELECT - Retrieves data from the database INSERT - Inserts new data into the database UPDATE - Updates existing data in the database DELETE - Deletes existing data from the database
Data Definition Language (DDL)

You may also occasionally need to create or drop a table or other datbase object. SQL enables you to do this programatically using DDL. Examples of DDL commands:

CREATE DATABASE - Creates a new database ALTER DATABASE - Modifies the database DROP DATABASE - Drops (deletes) a database CREATE TABLE - Creates a new table
ALTER TABLE - Modifies the table DROP TABLE - Drops (deletes) a table
These are just some of the object classes that can be defined using DDL. As you can probably guess, the syntax is generally the same for any object, although, each object will have properties specific to that object class. As you can see, the SQL syntax is quite simple. It is also very powerful syntax - you can do a lot of damage with one line of code!
SQL Select
The SELECT statement is probably the most commonly used in SQL. It simply retrieves data from the database. Lets have a look at a simple SELECT statement:
SELECT * FROM Individual
This SQL SELECT statement is attempting to retrieve all columns from a table called individuals. How do we know it is trying to select all columns? Because it is using an asterisk (*). This is a quick way of selecting all columns - it's much easier than writing out the names of all columns (especially if there are a lot of columns). Of course, this SQL SELECT statement assumes that there is a table called individuals. If there wasn't, an error would be generated. Lets have a look at the table the statement is trying to select data from: IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo
2 3 4 5
Homer Homer Ozzy Homer
Simpson Brown Gain
homey notsofamous noplacelike
Ozzbourne sabbath
Because our select statement asks to display all columns and all records, we would see the following: IndividualId 1 2 3 4 5 FirstName Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike
Select from Multiple Tables

You can select from more than one table at a time. To do this, simply separate each table with a comma. You should also qualify any references to columns by placing the table name in front, separated by a dot. We have another table called "Occupation", which contains the individual's occupation. OccupationId 1 2 3 4 5 IndividualId 1 2 3 4 5 JobTitle Engineer Accountant Cleaner Attorney Sales Executive
SQL statement
We will select from both the "Individual" table and the "Occupation" table. We will qualify any column names by prefixing them with its table's name and a dot.
SELECT * FROM Individual, Occupation WHERE Individual.FirstName = 'Homer'
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName OccupationId IndividualId JobTitle 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 1 Engineer 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 2 Accountant 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 3 Cleaner 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 4 4 Attorney 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 5 5 Sales Executive
Displaying Less Columns

If you don't need every column to be displayed you can single out just the columns you're interested in. It's good programming practice to do this - the more columns your program has to return, the more it will impact its performance. To only display those columns you're interested in, simply replace the asterisk (*) with a comma separated list of the column names.
SQL statement
SELECT IndividualId, LastName, UserName FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer'
Result
IndividualId 2 3 5 LastName Simpson Brown Gain UserName homey notsofamous noplacelike
SQL Where
In the previous lesson, we used a SQL SELECT statement to retrieve all records from a database table. This is fine if we want to see every record, but what if we were only interested in some records? For example, what if we were only interested in individuals whose first name is "Homer"? We could use the WHERE clause. Using the WHERE clause, you can filter out only those records that satisfy a given condition.
SQL WHERE Syntax

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name = 'criteria'
Example
SQL WHERE Statement
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer'
Source Table
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
Given there are 3 people with the first name of "Homer", the results will look like this: IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey Compiled By: Bhaskar Kapoor
3 5
Homer Homer
Brown Gain
notsofamous noplacelike
Multiple Conditions
You can filter records based on more than one condition using operators. Two common operators are the AND and OR operators.
AND Operator
The AND operator filters the query to only those records that satisfy both the first condition and the second condition.
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' AND LastName = 'Brown'
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 3 Homer Brown notsofamous
OR Operator
The OR operator filters the query to only those records that satisfy either one or the other condition.
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' OR LastName = 'Ozzbourne'
Result
IndividualId 2 3 5 4 FirstName Homer Homer Homer Ozzy LastName Simpson Brown Gain Ozzbourne UserName homey notsofamous noplacelike sabbath
SQL Order By
Using a SQL SELECT statement can retreive many hundreds or even thousands of records. In some cases you might find it useful to sort the records by a given column. For example, when selecting records from the Individual table, you might like to sort them by the LastName column.
SQL statement
SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName
Source Table
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
IndividualId 3 1 5 4 2 FirstName Homer Fred Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Brown Flinstone Gain Ozzbourne Simpson UserName notsofamous freddo noplacelike sabbath homey
Descending Order
By default, ORDER BY sorts the column in ascending order - that is, from lowest values to highest values. You could also explicitly state this using the ASC keyword, but it's not necessary. If you want highest values to appear first, you can use the DESC keyword.
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SQL statement
SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName DESC
Result
IndividualId 2 4 5 1 3 FirstName Homer Ozzy Homer Fred Homer LastName Simpson Ozzbourne Gain Flinstone Brown UserName homey sabbath noplacelike freddo notsofamous
Sorting By Multiple Columns

You can sort by multiple columns by stating each column in the ORDER BY clause, separating each column name with a comma. SQL will first order the results by the first column, then the second, and so on for as many columns that are included in the ORDER BY clause.
SQL statement
SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY FirstName, LastName
Result
IndividualId 1 3 5 2 4 FirstName Fred Homer Homer Homer Ozzy LastName Flinstone Brown Gain Simpson Ozzbourne UserName freddo notsofamous noplacelike homey sabbath
SQL Top
In the preceeding lessons on the SELECT statement, the examples have returned all records that have matched our SELECT criteria. This is great if
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you want to look at every record, but, what if you only want to look at the first few records? Sounds like you need the SQL TOP clause. The TOP clause allows us to specify how many rows to return. This can be useful on very large tables when there are thousands of records. Returning thousands of records can impact on performance, and if you are working with a production database, this could have an adverse impact on the users. Note: The SQL TOP clause is Transact-SQL, and not part of ANSI SQL. Therefore, depending on your database system, you may not be able to use this clause.
SQL statement
SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Individual
Source Table
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
IndividualId 1 2 3 FirstName Fred Homer Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown UserName freddo homey notsofamous
Specifying a Percentage
You have the option of specifying a percentage of the result set instead of an absolute value. You do this with the PERCENT keyword.
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SQL statement
SELECT TOP 40 PERCENT * FROM Individual
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey
SQL TOP and the ORDER BY clause

If you are using the TOP clause along with the ORDER BY clause, the TOP clause is applied to the ordered result set. Therefore, if we add an ORDER BY to the above query, we end up with something like this:
SQL statement
SELECT TOP 40 PERCENT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName DESC
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath
SQL Distinct
Once a table starts getting a lot of data in it, some columns will contain duplicate values. For example, many Individuals share first names and surnames. Most of the time this isn't a problem. But sometimes you will want to find out how many unique values there are in a table. To do this you can use the DISTINCT keyword.
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SQL statement
SELECT DISTINCT(FirstName) FROM Individual
Source Table
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
Using the DISTINCT keyword, all customers with a name of "Homer" are counted as one. FirstName Fred Homer Ozzy
SQL In
The SQL IN operator assists you in providing multiple values in your WHERE clause. This can provide very useful when you need to compare your value to a list of values. Often this list could be the result of a query from another table.
SQL Syntax
SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name IN (value1,value2,...)
Example
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SQL statement
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE LastName IN ('Simpson','Ozzbourne','Flinstone')
Source Table
Id FirstName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike
Result
IndividualId 1 2 4 FirstName Fred Homer Ozzy LastName Flinstone Simpson Ozzbourne UserName freddo homey sabbath
You might have noticed that this returns the same result as the following SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE LastName = 'Simpson' OR LastName = 'Ozzbourne' OR LastName = 'Flinstone'
Yes, we could just have easily used that statement but the SQL IN statement is more concise.
SQL IN and Subqueries

Now, where the SQL IN operator becomes really useful is when you need to compare a value against the result of another query. For example, lets say we have another table called "Publisher". This table contains users who are allowed to contribute to the website via an
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administration console. All users in the Publisher table are also in the Individual table, but not all users in the Individual table are in the Publisher table.
Source Tables
Individual Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Publisher Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike
Ozzbourne sabbath
Our task is to return a list of usernames from all publishers who have an access level of "Contributor". You may notice that the usernames are in the Individual table but the access level is stored in the Publisher table. Also, there could potentially be many contributors. This is a good candidate for the SQL IN operator!
SQL statement
SELECT UserName FROM Individual WHERE IndividualId IN (SELECT IndividualId FROM Publisher WHERE AccessLevel = 'Contributor')
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Result
UserName homey notsofamous sabbath In this example there aren't many records in the Publisher table, but imagine if there were thousands - the IN statement is great for this sort of thing.
SQL Alias
In SQL, an alias is a name that you give a table. This can make it easier to work with table names - especially when they are long. You could name the alias anything, but usually you'd make it short. You may be thinking "a table already has a name, why give it another one?". Well, there are some good reasons for creating an alias. The main reasons are:
Queries can sometimes get very long. Aliases can make your query easier to read. You may find yourself referencing the same table name over and over again - this will occur if you're working with multiple tables and you need to refer to columns from those tables. It can be annoying to have to write the whole name all the time - especially if it's a long one. You may need to work with multiple instances of the same table, for example, a self join. If you're not familiar with joins, they are covered later in this tutorial.
As mentioned, an alias could be anything. For example, if you have a table called Individual you could give it an alias of i. Another table called IndividualProductPurchase could have an alias of, say, ipp
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Alias Syntax
SELECT * FROM table_name AS alias_name
Example SQL Statement

SELECT o.JobTitle FROM Individual AS i, Occupation AS o WHERE i.FirstName = 'Homer' ORDER BY o.JobTitle
SQL Inner Join

As discussed in the previous lesson, you should use the SQL INNER JOIN when you only want to return records where there is at least one row in both tables that match the join condition.
Example SQL statement

SELECT * FROM Individual INNER JOIN Publisher ON Individual.IndividualId = Publisher.IndividualId WHERE Individual.IndividualId = '2'
Source Tables
Left Table Id FirstName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike
Right Table IndividualId AccessLevel
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1 2 3 4 10
Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor Next lesson covers the SQL OUTER JOIN.
SQL Outer Join

This lesson covers both the left outer join, the right outer join, and the full outer join, and explains the differences between them. There are some occasions where you would need to use a left outer join or a right outer join, and others where you would need a full outer join. The join type you use will depend on the situation and what data you need to return.
Left Outer Join

Use this when you only want to return rows that have matching data in the left table, even if there's no matching rows in the right table.

SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind LEFT JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId
Source Tables
Left Table
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Id FirstName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer
LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain
UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike
Right Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 10 AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator
Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 Administrator 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 Contributor 4 Ozzy Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor 5 Homer Gain noplacelike NULL NULL
Right Outer Join

Use this when you only want to return rows that have matching data in the right table, even if there's no matching rows in the left table.

SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind RIGHT JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId
Source Tables
Left Table
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Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 Administrator 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 Contributor 4 Ozzy Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor NULL NULL NULL NULL 10 Administrator
Full Outer Join

Use this when you want to all rows, even if there's no matching rows in the right table.

SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind FULL JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId
Source Tables
Left Table
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Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 Administrator 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 Contributor 4 Ozzy Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor 5 Homer Gain noplacelike NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL 10 Administrator
SQL Insert
Up until now, this tutorial has covered the SELECT statement and variations on it. We are now about to learn a new statement - the INSERT statement. The SQL INSERT command allows you to insert a record into a table in your database. As with the SELECT syntax, the INSERT syntax is quite straight forward.
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SQL statement
INSERT INTO Individual VALUES ( '6', 'Benny', 'Hill', 'hillbenny' )
Source Table
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
Now if we do a SELECT on the Individual table, we can see the new record added to the bottom of the result set. IndividualId 1 2 3 4 5 6 FirstName Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Benny LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain Hill UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike hillbenny
See - nothing to it! Now, it's important to note that the INSERT statement is used only when you want to add a new record to the table. If you want to update an existing record, use an UPDATE statement. The UPDATE command is described in the next lesson.
SQL Update
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The SQL UPDATE statement allows you to update an existing record in the database. The UPDATE command uses a WHERE clause. If you don't use a WHERE clause, all rows will be updated. In fact, the syntax for a basic UPDATE statement is very similar to a SELECT statement.
SQL statement
UPDATE Individual SET UserName = 'funnyman' WHERE IndividualId = '6'
Source Table
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Benny Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain Hill freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike funnyman
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
Now if we select this record, we can see the updated value. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 6 Benny Hill funnyman
Updating Multiple Fields

To update multiple fields, separate each field assignment with a comma.
SQL statement
UPDATE Individual SET UserName = 'getserious', FirstName = 'Onetree' WHERE IndividualId = '6'
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Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 6 Onetree Hill getserious Next lesson covers the DELETE statement.
SQL Delete
The SQL DELETE statement allows you to delete a record from the database. The DELETE command uses a WHERE clause. If you don't use a WHERE clause, all rows in the table will be deleted. Again, as with the UPDATE statement, the syntax for a basic DELETE statement is similar to a SELECT statement.
SQL statement
DELETE FROM Individual WHERE IndividualId = '6'
Source Table
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Benny Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain Hill freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike funnyman
Ozzbourne sabbath
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Result
Now if we select all records from the table, we see that record 6 has been deleted. IndividualId 1 2 3 4 5 FirstName Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike
SQL Functions
SQL has a number of functions to assist you in your database programming. Functions are a self contained script/program built for a specific purpose. Generally, the value returned by a function will depend on the context in which it is being used. Often, a SQL function will be used within a query and this is what provides it with it's context. Transact-SQL provides 3 different types of functions: Rowset Functions Aggregate Functions These return an object that can be used in place of a table reference in a SQL statement Perform a calculation on a set of values and return a single value. Aggregate functions can be used in the following:

The select list of a SELECT statement A COMPUTE or COMPUTE BY clause
Scalar Functions
A HAVING clause These return a single value from a single value. Scalar functions are categorized as follows:
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Configuration Functions Cursor Functions Date and Time Functions Mathematical Functions Metadata Functions Security Functions String Functions System Functions System Statistical Functions Text and Image Functions
On top of these functions, different database vendors have their own built-in functions for their products. Also, most products enable programmers to program their own User Defined Functions. For information on proprietary functions, you should consult the vendor's documentation. In the next lesson you will learn about one of the more commonly used SQL functions - the COUNT function.
SQL Count
A commonly used aggregate function in SQL is COUNT. COUNT returns the number of rows that match the given criteria.
COUNT(*)
If we only want to see how many records are in a table (but not actually view those records), we could use COUNT(*). COUNT(*) returns everything including null values and duplicates.
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SQL statement
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Individual
Source Table
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Bono Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike u2
Ozzbourne sabbath
Result
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COUNT(column name)
If we want to see how many non-null values are in a given column, we use COUNT(column name) where column name is the name of the column we want to test.
SQL statement
SELECT COUNT(LastName) FROM Individual
Source Table
Id FirstName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Bono LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike u2
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Result
5
Combining COUNT & DISTINCT

If we only want to see how many unique names are in the table, we could nest the DISTINCT inside a COUNT function.
SQL statement
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(FirstName)) FROM Individual
Result
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SQL Create
Most database systems provide a way for you to create database objects via a WYSIWYG interface. For example, Microsoft's SQL Server has Enterprise Manager. The Enterprise Manager gives you a kind of graphical representation of your database system. You can browse through your databases, view the tables and their contents etc. Despite having a tool like Enterprise Manager to make these tasks easier, there can be good reasons for wanting to perform some of these tasks programatically. Possible reasons could include:

Your application allows users to create objects on the fly. You have multiple environments (for example development, staging, production). It's much easier, and less error prone, to run a script against 3 environments than to open up Enterprise Manager and repeat the steps in 3 environments - especially if you have lots of changes.
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You don't have access to Enterprise Manager (or your database system's equivalent).
Fortunately, SQL has a number of CREATE commands that enable you to programatically create database objects including the database, its tables and more. Here are the CREATE commands supported by SQL Server:

CREATE ACTION CREATE CACHE CREATE CELL CALCULATION CREATE CUBE CREATE DATABASE CREATE DEFAULT CREATE FUNCTION CREATE INDEX CREATE MEMBER CREATE MINING MODEL CREATE PROCEDURE CREATE RULE CREATE SCHEMA CREATE SET CREATE STATISTICS CREATE TABLE CREATE TRIGGER CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX CREATE VIEW
We're not going to cover all these here but, over the next few lessons, we'll cover some of the most common CREATE commands.
SQL Create Database

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You can create a database using the CREATE DATABASE command.
SQL syntax
CREATE DATABASE database_name
Example Code
This statement creates a database called "Payroll". Because no arguments have been specified, the database data files and transaction logs will be created automatically in the default location.
CREATE DATABASE Payroll
Adding Arguments
There are a number of optional arguments that you can supply with the CREATE DATABASE command. You should check your database system's documentation for the specific arguments supported and their usage, but here's an example of supplying arguments when creating a database using Microsoft's SQL Server.
Example Code
In this example, we are supplying the name and location of the database's data file and transaction log. We are also specifying the initial size of these files (with the SIZE argument), the maximum size it can grow to (with the MAXSIZE argument) and the growth increment of each file (using the FILEGROWTH) argument.
USE master GO CREATE DATABASE Payroll ON

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( NAME = Payroll_dat, FILENAME = 'c:\program files\microsoft sql server\mssql\data\payrolldat.mdf', SIZE = 20MB, MAXSIZE = 70MB, FILEGROWTH = 5MB ) LOG ON ( NAME = 'Payroll_log', FILENAME = 'c:\program files\microsoft sql server\mssql\data\payroll.ldf', SIZE = 10MB, MAXSIZE = 40MB, FILEGROWTH = 5MB ) GO
Next up is the CREATE TABLE command.
SQL Create Table

You create a table using the CREATE TABLE command.
SQL syntax
CREATE TABLE table_name (column_name_1 datatype, column_name_2 datatype, ... )
Example
CREATE TABLE Individual (IndividualId int, FirstName Varchar(255), LastName Varchar(255), UserName Char(10) )
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Result
This results in an empty table. You can now use an INSERT statement to add data to the table. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName
Data Types
You'll notice we explicitly stated the data type in our CREATE TABLE statement. This is because, when you create a column, you need to tell the database what type of data it can hold. The exact data types and how their expressed differs with each database system and vendor, but you'll find that generally, there will be support for fixed length strings (eg char), variable length strings (eg varchar), date/time values (eg datetime), numbers and integers (eg, bigint, int, smallint, tinyint, numeric). The following base data types are available in SQL Server 2000. bigint datetime money tinyint Binary Decimal Nchar bit float ntext char image nvarchar uniqueidentifier cursor int real timestamp
smalldatetime Smallint
smallmoney text
Varbinary Varchar
You may need to consult your database system's documentation if you're unsure of which data type to use or how it is expressed in that system. Next, we learn how to create an index for our table with the CREATE INDEX command.
SQL Create Index

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Indexes can be created against a table to make searches more efficient. A database index is similar to an index of a book - a book index allows you to find information without having to read through the whole book. A database index enables the database application to find data quickly without having to scan the whole table. Indexes can have a slight impact on performance so you should only create indexes against tables and columns that will be frequently searched against. For example, if users of your application often search against the LastName field then that field is a great candidate for an index. You create an index using the CREATE INDEX command.
SQL syntax
CREATE INDEX index_name ON table_name (column_name)
Example
CREATE INDEX IndividualIndex ON Individual (LastName)
SQL Alter Table

In an earlier lesson, we created a table with the CREATE TABLE command. In this lesson, we will modify the table using the ALTER TABLE command.
Add a Column
SQL syntax
ALTER TABLE table_name
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ADD column_name datatype

ALTER TABLE Individual ADD age int
Change the Datatype

SQL syntax
ALTER TABLE table_name ALTER COLUMN column_name datatype

ALTER TABLE Individual ALTER COLUMN age numeric
Drop a Column
'Dropping' a column means removing or deleting that column.
SQL syntax
ALTER TABLE table_name DROP COLUMN column_name

ALTER TABLE Individual DROP COLUMN age
SQL Summary
Congratulations - you've reached the end!
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This SQL tutorial has provided you with a quick and easy way to learn SQL. We began by learning that SQL stands for Structured Query Language, and is an ANSI standard. We then learned the basic SQL syntax, before continuing on to the SELECT statement - probably the most commonly used statement. We learned that there are various keywords and aggregate functions that can be included into SQL statements such as WHERE, COUNT, DISTINCT etc. These are all part of the DML (Data Manipulation Language).
Then, after covering the INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements, we learned that there are various commands for performing administration tasks against a database. For example, there are commands for creating database objects (CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE etc), and there are commands for modifying (or altering) database objects (ALTER DATABASE, ALTER TABLE etc). These commands are part of the DDL (Data Definition Language).
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Microsoft Access Versus SQL Server

As we near the end of this tutorial, you may be thinking "Microsoft Access seems to have some great features, why would I want to use any other database package?". In particular, if you've heard about SQL Server, you may be wondering what the difference is between Microsoft Access and SQL Server. Now that you've learned how to use MS Access, there are some very good reasons why you wouldn't use it in some cases. Here's a rundown on Microsoft Access versus SQL Server.
MS Access
Access is more suited for desktop use with a small number of users accessing it simultaneously. One reason you might choose to use Access over SQL Server is for compatibility/sharing. You might need to email someone a copy of your database. People are more likely to have Access on their desktop computer than SQL Server. You'll generally only find SQL Server on developers' computers/servers or on production server machines. Another reason you might use Access instead of SQL Server is money. You might already have installed Access as part of the Microsoft Office suite. Purchasing SQL Server would be an extra expense that may not be necessary - depending on your situation. SQL Server can also be quite expensive.
MS SQL Server
SQL Server is a more robust database management system. SQL Server was designed to have many hundreds, or even thousands of users accessing it at any point in time. Microsoft Access on the other hand, doesn't handle this type of load very well. Compiled By: Bhaskar Kapoor
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This makes SQL Server perfectly suited for database driven websites. You should never use Access for a database driven website - unless it has a very small amount of traffic (like you and a few of your friends). Even then, you may find yourself getting errors due to multiple users trying to access the database at the same time. SQL Server also contains some advanced database administration tools that enable organisations to schedule tasks, receive alerts, optimize databases, configure security accounts/roles, transfer data between other disparate sources, and much more.
So Which One - Microsoft Access or SQL Server?

You need to make the decision. It may already be made for you. If you've just finished this whole tutorial, then there's a good chance you already have MS Access. This probably means that you've got good reason to use Access. If you do think you need to upgrade to SQL Server, don't panic - it's not a scary as you might think! And you didn't just waste your time learning Access. You will find that SQL Server is similar in many ways to Access. Now that you know your way around Access, you should be able to relate to SQL Server much better. In any case, I recommend
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Database Development Using SQL: Department of Information Technology

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Database Development Using SQL: Department of Information Technology

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Department of Information technology