Chapter 3: Introduction to SQL

Chapter 3: Introduction to SQL

 Overview of the SQL Query Language
 Data Definition
 Basic Query Structure
 Additional Basic Operations
 Set Operations
 Null Values
 Aggregate Functions
 Nested Subqueries
 Modification of the Database
 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, SQL:2003, SQL:2008
 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
 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 n digits to the right of decimal point.
 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.
 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) not null,
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
 insert into instructor values (‘10211’, ’Smith’, ’Biology’, 66000);
 insert into instructor values (‘10211’, null, ’Biology’, 66000);
 Integrity Constraints in Create Table

 not null
 primary key (A1, ..., An )

 foreign key (Am, ..., An ) references r

Example: Declare dept_name as the primary key for department

.
create table instructor (
ID char(5),
name varchar(20) not null,
dept_name varchar(20),
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,
dept_name varchar(20),
tot_cred numeric(3,0),
primary key (ID),
foreign key (dept_name) references department) );
 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) primary key,
title varchar(50),
dept_name varchar(20),
credits numeric(2,0),
foreign key (dept_name) references department) );
 Primary key declaration can be combined with attribute
declaration as shown above
 Drop and Alter Table Constructs
 drop table student
 Deletes the table and its contents
 delete from student
 Deletes all contents of table, but retains table
 alter table
 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 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
 The SQL data-manipulation language (DML) provides the
ability to query information, and insert, delete and update
tuples
 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 list 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 names of all departments with instructor, and remove
duplicates
select distinct dept_name
from instructor
 The keyword all specifies that duplicates not be removed.

select all dept_name

from instructor
 The select Clause (Cont.)
 An asterisk in the select clause denotes “all attributes”
select *
from instructor
 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.
 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 with salary > 80000
select name
from instructor
where dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.' and salary >
80000
 Comparison results can be combined using the logical
connectives and, or, and not.
 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
 Cartesian product not very useful directly, but useful combined
with where-clause condition (selection operation in relational
algebra)
Cartesian Product: instructor X teaches
instructor teaches
 Joins
 For all instructors who have taught some course, find their names
and the course ID of the courses they taught.
select name, course_id
from instructor, teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID
 Find the course ID, semester, year and title of each course offered
by the Comp. Sci. department
select section.course_id, semester, year, title
from section, course
where section.course_id = course.course_id and
dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.'
 Try Writing Some Queries in SQL
 Suggest queries to be written…..
 Natural Join
 Natural join matches tuples with the same values for all
common attributes, and retains only one copy of each common
column
 select *
from instructor natural join teaches;
 Natural Join Example
 List the names of instructors along with the course ID of the courses that
they taught.

 select name, course_id

from instructor, teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID;

 select name, course_id

from instructor natural join teaches;
 Natural Join (Cont.)
 Danger in natural join: beware of unrelated attributes with same name which
get equated incorrectly
 List the names of instructors along with the the titles of courses that they
teach
 Incorrect version (makes course.dept_name = instructor.dept_name)
 select name, title
from instructor natural join teaches natural join course;
 Correct version
 select name, title
from instructor natural join teaches, course
where teaches.course_id = course.course_id;
 Another correct version
 select name, title
from (instructor natural join teaches)
join course using(course_id);
 The Rename Operation
 The SQL allows renaming relations and attributes using the as clause:
old-name as new-name
 E.g.
 select ID, name, salary/12 as monthly_salary
from instructor

 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
 Keyword as must be omitted in Oracle
 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 '\'
 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
 select name, course_id
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

(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Fall’ and year = 2009)
intersect
(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Spring’ and year = 2010)

 Find courses that ran in Fall 2009 but not in Spring 2010

(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Fall’ and year = 2009)
except
(select course_id from section where sem = ‘Spring’ and year = 2010)
 Set Operations
 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

 Any comparison with null returns unknown

 Example: 5 < null or null <> null or null = null
 Three-valued logic using the truth 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
 Aggregate Functions
 These functions operate on the multiset of values of a
column of a relation, and return a value
avg: average value
min: minimum value
max: maximum value
sum: sum of values
count: number of values
 Aggregate Functions (Cont.)
 Find the average salary of instructors in the Computer Science
department
 select avg (salary)
from instructor
where dept_name= ’Comp. Sci.’;
 Find the total number of instructors who teach a course in the
Spring 2010 semester
 select count (distinct ID)
from teaches
where semester = ’Spring’ and year = 2010
 Find the number of tuples in the course relation
 select count (*)
from course;
 Aggregate Functions – Group By
 Find the average salary of instructors in each department
 select dept_name, avg (salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name;
 Note: departments with no instructor will not appear in result
 Aggregation (Cont.)
 Attributes in select clause outside of aggregate functions must
appear in group by list
 /* erroneous query */
select dept_name, ID, avg (salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name;
 Aggregate Functions – Having Clause

 Find the names and average salaries of all departments whose

average salary is greater than 42000

select dept_name, avg (salary)

from instructor
group by dept_name
having avg (salary) > 42000;

Note: predicates in the having clause are applied after the

formation of groups whereas predicates in the where
clause are applied before forming groups
 Null Values and Aggregates
 Total all salaries
select sum (salary )
from instructor
 Above statement ignores null amounts
 Result is null if there is no non-null amount
 All aggregate operations except count(*) ignore tuples with null
values on the aggregated attributes
 What if collection has only null values?
 count returns 0
 all other aggregates return null
 Nested Subqueries
 SQL provides a mechanism for the nesting of subqueries.
 A subquery is a select-from-where expression that is nested
within another query.
 A common use of subqueries is to perform tests for set
membership, set comparisons, and set cardinality.
 Example Query
 Find courses offered in Fall 2009 and in Spring 2010

select distinct course_id

from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009 and
course_id in (select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
 Find courses offered in Fall 2009 but not in Spring 2010

select distinct course_id

from section
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009 and
course_id not in (select course_id
from section
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010);
 Example Query
 Find the total number of (distinct) studentswho have taken
course sections taught by the instructor with ID 10101

select count (distinct ID)

from takes
where (course_id, sec_id, semester, year) in
(select course_id, sec_id, semester, year
from teaches
where teaches.ID= 10101);

 Note: Above query can be written in a much simpler manner. The

formulation above is simply to illustrate SQL features.
 Set Comparison

 Find names of instructors with salary greater than that of some

(at least one) instructor in the Biology department.

select distinct T.name

from instructor as T, instructor as S
where T.salary > S.salary and S.dept_name = ’Biology’;

 Same query using > some clause

select name
from instructor
where salary > some (select salary
from instructor
where dept_name = ’Biology’);
 Definition of Some Clause

 F <comp> some r t r such that (F <comp> t )

Where <comp> can be:     

0
(5 < some 5 ) = true
(read: 5 < some tuple in the relation)
6
0
(5 < some 5 ) = false

0
(5 = some 5 ) = true

0
(5  some 5 ) = true (since 0  5)
(= some)  in
However, ( some)  not in
 Example Query
 Find the names of all instructors whose salary is greater than
the salary of all instructors in the Biology department.

select name
from instructor
where salary > all (select salary
from instructor
where dept_name = ’Biology’);
 Definition of all Clause
 F <comp> all r t r (F <comp> t)

0
(5 < all 5 ) = false
6
6
(5 < all 10 ) = true

4
(5 = all 5 ) = false

4
(5  all 6 ) = true (since 5  4 and 5  6)
( all)  not in
However, (= all)  in
 Test for Empty Relations
 The exists construct returns the value true if the argument
subquery is nonempty.
 exists r  r  Ø
 not exists r  r = Ø
 Correlation Variables
 Yet another way of specifying the query “Find all courses
taught in both the Fall 2009 semester and in the Spring 2010
semester”
select course_id
from section as S
where semester = ’Fall’ and year= 2009 and
exists (select *
from section as T
where semester = ’Spring’ and year= 2010
and S.course_id= T.course_id);
 Correlated subquery
 Correlation name or correlation variable
 Not Exists
 Find all students who have taken all courses offered in the
Biology department.

select distinct S.ID, S.name

from student as S
where not exists ( (select course_id
from course
where dept_name = ’Biology’)
except
(select T.course_id
from takes as T
where S.ID = T.ID));

 Note that X – Y = Ø  X Y

 Note: Cannot write this query using = all and its variants
 Test for Absence of Duplicate Tuples

 The unique construct tests whether a subquery has any duplicate tuples
in its result.
 (Evaluates to “true” on an empty set)
 Find all courses that were offered at most once in 2009
select T.course_id
from course as T
where unique (select R.course_id
from section as R
where T.course_id= R.course_id
and R.year = 2009);
 Subqueries in the From Clause
 SQL allows a subquery expression to be used in the from clause
 Find the average instructors’ salaries of those departments where the average
salary is greater than $42,000.
select dept_name, avg_salary
from (select dept_name, avg (salary) as avg_salary
from instructor
group by dept_name)
where avg_salary > 42000;
 Note that we do not need to use the having clause
 Another way to write above query
select dept_name, avg_salary
from (select dept_name, avg (salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name)
as dept_avg (dept_name, avg_salary)
where avg_salary > 42000;
 Subqueries in the From Clause (Cont.)
 And yet another way to write it: lateral clause
select name, salary, avg_salary
from instructor I1,
lateral (select avg(salary) as avg_salary
from instructor I2
where I2.dept_name= I1.dept_name);
 Lateral clause permits later part of the from clause (after the lateral
keyword) to access correlation variables from the earlier part.
 Note: lateral is part of the SQL standard, but is not supported on many
database systems; some databases such as SQL Server offer
alternative syntax
 With Clause
 The with clause provides a way of defining a temporary view
whose definition is available only to the query in which the with
clause occurs.
 Find all departments with the maximum budget

with max_budget (value) as

(select max(budget)
from department)
select budget
from department, max_budget
where department.budget = max_budget.value;
 Complex Queries using With Clause

 With clause is very useful for writing complex queries

 Supported by most database systems, with minor syntax
variations
 Find all departments where the total salary is greater than the
average of the total salary at all departments
with dept _total (dept_name, value) as
(select dept_name, sum(salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name),
dept_total_avg(value) as
(select avg(value)
from dept_total)
select dept_name
from dept_total, dept_total_avg
where dept_total.value >= dept_total_avg.value;
 Scalar Subquery
 Scalar subquery is one which is used where a single value is expected
 E.g. select dept_name,
(select count(*)
from instructor
where department.dept_name = instructor.dept_name)
as num_instructors
from department;

 E.g. select name

from instructor
where salary * 10 >
(select budget from department
where department.dept_name = instructor.dept_name)

 Runtime error if subquery returns more than one result tuple

 Modification of the Database
 Deletion of tuples from a given relation
 Insertion of new tuples into a given relation
 Updating values in some tuples in a given relation
 Modification of the Database – Deletion

 Delete all instructors

delete from instructor

 Delete all instructors from the Finance department

delete from instructor
where dept_name= ’Finance’;
 Delete all tuples in the instructor relation for those instructors
associated with a department located in the Watson building.
delete from instructor
where dept_name in (select dept_name
from department
where building = ’Watson’);
 Deletion (Cont.)
 Delete all instructors whose salary is less than the average
salary of instructors

delete from instructor

where salary< (select avg (salary) from instructor);

 Problem: as we delete tuples from deposit, the average salary

changes
 Solution used in SQL:
1. First, compute avg salary and find all tuples to delete
2. Next, delete all tuples found above (without recomputing avg or

retesting the tuples)

 Modification of the Database – Insertion

 Add a new tuple to course

insert into course
values (’CS-437’, ’Database Systems’, ’Comp. Sci.’, 4);

 or equivalently
insert into course (course_id, title, dept_name, credits)
values (’CS-437’, ’Database Systems’, ’Comp. Sci.’, 4);

 Add a new tuple to student with tot_creds set to null

insert into student
values (’3003’, ’Green’, ’Finance’, null);
 Insertion (Cont.)

 Add all instructors to the student relation with tot_creds set to 0

insert into student values
select ID, name, dept_name, 0
from instructor
 The select from where statement is evaluated fully before any of
its results are inserted into the relation (otherwise queries like
insert into table1 values select * from table1
would cause problems, if table1 did not have any primary key
defined.
 Modification of the Database – Updates

 Increase salaries of instructors whose salary is over $100,000 by

3%, and all others receive a 5% raise
 Write two update statements:
update instructor
set salary = salary * 1.03
where salary > 100000;
update instructor
set salary = salary * 1.05
where salary <= 100000;
 The order is important
 Can be done better using the case statement (next slide)
 Case Statement for Conditional Updates

 Same query as before but with case statement

update instructor
set salary = case
when salary <= 100000 then salary *
1.05
else salary * 1.03
end
 Updates with Scalar Subqueries
 Recompute and update tot_creds value for all students
update student S
set tot_cred = ( select sum(credits)
from takes natural join course
where S.ID= takes.ID and
takes.grade <> ’F’ and
takes.grade is not null);
 Sets tot_creds to null for students who have not taken any course
 Instead of sum(credits), use:
case
when sum(credits) is not null then sum(credits)
else 0
end
 Advanced SQL Features**
 Create a table with the same schema as an existing table:
create table temp_account like account
End of Chapter 3