SQL: Schema Definition,

Basic Constraints, and

Queries
 SQL
Structured Query Language
⚫Language for describing database schema
and operations on tables
⚫DDL, DML, DCL and TCL are considered
sublanguages of SQL

Slide 8-2
 Tables
⚫SQL entity that corresponds to a relation
⚫An element of the database schema

Slide 8-3
 Data Definition, Constraints,
and Schema Changes
⚫Used to CREATE, DROP, and ALTER the
descriptions of the tables (relations) of a
database

Slide 8-4
 CREATE TABLE
⚫ Specifies a new base relation by giving it a name,
and specifying each of its attributes and their data
types (INTEGER, FLOAT, DECIMAL(i,j),
CHAR(n), VARCHAR(n))
⚫ A constraint NOT NULL may be specified on an
attribute
CREATE TABLE DEPARTMENT
( DNAME VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
DNUMBER INTEGER NOT NULL,
MGRSSN CHAR(9),
MGRSTARTDATE CHAR(9) );

Slide 8-5
 CREATE TABLE
⚫ In SQL2, can use the CREATE TABLE command for
specifying the primary key attributes, secondary keys, and
referential integrity constraints (foreign keys).
⚫ Key attributes can be specified via the PRIMARY KEY
and UNIQUE phrases

CREATE TABLE DEPT

( DNAME VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
DNUMBER INTEGER NOT NULL,
MGRSSN CHAR(9),
MGRSTARTDATE CHAR(9),
PRIMARY KEY (DNUMBER),
UNIQUE (DNAME),
FOREIGN KEY (MGRSSN) REFERENCES EMP );

Slide 8-6
Table Creation
Steps in table creation:
1. Identify data types for
attributes
2. Identify columns that
can and cannot be null
3. Identify columns that
must be unique
(candidate keys)
4. Identify primary key-
foreign key mates
5. Determine default
values
6. Identify constraints on
columns (domain
specifications)
7. Create the table and
associated indexes

Slide 8-7
 DROP TABLE
⚫Used to remove a relation (base table) and
its definition
⚫The relation can no longer be used in
queries, updates, or any other commands
since its description no longer exists
⚫Example:

DROP TABLE DEPENDENT;

Slide 8-8
 ALTER TABLE
⚫ Used to add an attribute to one of the base relations
⚫ The new attribute will have NULLs in all the tuples of the
relation right after the command is executed; hence, the
NOT NULL constraint is not allowed for such an attribute
⚫ Example:

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE ADD JOB

VARCHAR(12);

⚫ The database users must still enter a value for the new
attribute JOB for each EMPLOYEE tuple. This can be
done using the UPDATE command.
Slide 8-9
 Setting Default values for
attributes
⚫ Example1: In table creation
– CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255) DEFAULT 'Sandnes'
)
⚫ Example2: In table altering
– ALTER TABLE Persons
ALTER City SET DEFAULT 'SANDNES'

Slide 8-10
 CREATE SCHEMA
⚫Specifies a new database schema by giving
it a name

Slide 8-11
 REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY
OPTIONS
⚫ We can specify RESTRICT, CASCADE, SET NULL or
SET DEFAULT on referential integrity constraints (foreign
keys)

CREATE TABLE DEPT

( DNAME VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
DNUMBER INTEGER NOT NULL,
MGRSSN CHAR(9),
MGRSTARTDATE CHAR(9),
PRIMARY KEY (DNUMBER),
UNIQUE (DNAME),
FOREIGN KEY (MGRSSN) REFERENCES EMP
ON DELETE SET DEFAULT ON UPDATE
CASCADE );
Slide 8-12
REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY
OPTIONS (continued)
CREATE TABLE EMP
( ENAME VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
ESSN CHAR(9),
BDATE DATE,
DNO INTEGER DEFAULT 1,
SUPERSSN CHAR(9),
PRIMARY KEY (ESSN),
FOREIGN KEY (DNO) REFERENCES DEPT
ON DELETE SET DEFAULT ON UPDATE CASCADE,
FOREIGN KEY (SUPERSSN) REFERENCES EMP
ON DELETE SET NULL ON UPDATE CASCADE );

Slide 8-13
REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY
OPTIONS (continued)
CREATE TABLE EMP
( ENAME VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
ESSN CHAR(9),
BDATE DATE,
DNO INTEGER DEFAULT 1,
SUPERSSN CHAR(9),
PRIMARY KEY (ESSN),
FOREIGN KEY (DNO) REFERENCES DEPT
ON DELETE RESTRICT);

Or

ALTER TABLE EMP

ADD CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (DNO) REFERENCES DEPT
ON DELETE NO ACTION

Note: Both RESTRICT and NO ACTION has the same effect, if forbids deletion of
records from table DEPT that have references in table EMP. The only difference is
that with NO ACTION, the referential integrity check is done after trying to alter
the table, while RESTRICT does the checking before trying to execute the
UPDATE or DELETE Statement.

Slide 8-14
 Common SQL Data Types

⚫ String types
– CHAR(n) – fixed-length character data, n characters long Maximum length = 2000
bytes
– VARCHAR2(n) – variable length character data, maximum 4000 bytes
– LONG – variable-length character data, up to 4GB. Maximum 1 per table
⚫ Numeric types
– NUMBER(p,q) – general purpose numeric data type
– Numeric (p, q)- general purpose numeric data type
– INTEGER(p) – signed integer, p digits wide
– FLOAT(p) – floating point in scientific notation with p binary digits precision
⚫ Date/Time type
– DATe: Made up of year-month-day in the format yyyy-mm-dd
– TIME: Made up of hour:minute:second in the format hh:mm:ss

Slide 8-15
 SQL Environment
⚫ Catalog
– a set of schemas that constitute the description of a database
(Dictionary)
⚫ Schema
– The structure that contains descriptions of objects created by a user
(base tables, views, constraints)
⚫ Data Definition Language (DDL):
– Commands that define a database, including creating, altering, and
dropping tables and establishing constraints
⚫ Data Manipulation Language (DML)
– Commands that maintain and query a database
⚫ Data Control Language (DCL)
– Commands that control a database, including administering
privileges and committing data Slide 8-16
 System Catalog
⚫ CREATE TABLE inserts information into the catalog
⚫ Catalog is another table that describes Objects created such
as:
– Table names
– Constraint names
– Role Names
– Triggers, Sequences, Views, etc
– Attribute names of different tables
– Corresponding attribute types, etc.
⚫ Catalog schema is generally fixed by vendor
⚫ In Oracle SQL this catalog is called DICTIONARY

Slide 8-17
 SQL Database Definition
⚫ Data Definition Language (DDL)
⚫ Major CREATE statements:
– CREATE SCHEMA – defines a portion of the database
owned by a particular user
– CREATE TABLE – defines a table and its columns
– CREATE VIEW – defines a logical table from one or
more views
⚫ Other CREATE statements: CHARACTER SET,
Sequence, Index, Constraint, Role, ..etc

Slide 8-18
 Example table creation
Employee
Emp_Name Dept_no Gender Age salary

Sara John 2 M 27 1000

Sally Wood 2 F 27 2600
John Smith 1 M 32 5000
Mary Smith 10 F 42 1550

CREATE TABLE Employee (

Emp_Name VARCHAR(12),
Dept_no numeric(2),
Gender CHAR(1),
Age Numeric(3),
Salary numeric(7,2));

⚫ After creating the table, you can view it using the

command: Desc tableName
Slide 8-19
 ALTER TABLE

⚫ ALTER TABLE table_name

ADD column_name datatype
– Adds a column to the table
Ex : Alter table employee add address varchar2(40);
⚫ ALTER TABLE table_name
DROP COLUMN column_name
– Removes a column (and all its data) from the table
Ex : Alter table employee drop column address;
⚫ ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY (column_name newType/length)
Ex : Alter table employee modify age varchar2(15);

Slide 8-20
 INSERT INTO (DML)
⚫ Adds data to a table
⚫ Syntax:
INSERT INTO table_name (column, …, column)
VALUES (value, …, value);

⚫ The columns are the names of columns you are

putting data into, and the values are that data
⚫ String data must be enclosed in single quotes
⚫ Numbers are not quoted
⚫ You can omit the column names if you supply a value
for every column

Slide 8-21
 INSERT (cont.)
⚫In its simplest form, it is used to add one or
more tuples to a relation
⚫Attribute values should be listed in the same
order as the attributes were specified in the
CREATE TABLE command

Slide 8-22
 INSERT INTO (Cont.)
⚫ Inserting into a table
– Insert into employee (emp_Name, Dept_no, gender, salary)
Values (‘Sara johns’, 1, ‘F’, 1440);
⚫ Inserting a record that has some null attributes requires identifying the
fields that actually get data
⚫ When you insert a record and you have values for all attributes, there
is no need to specify the attributes names.
– Insert into employee
Values (‘Suzy Alan’, 10, ‘F’, 1200);
⚫ Inserting from another table
– INSERT INTO emp_senior
select * from employee where age > 60;
The main condition in this case, that both tables has the same attributes and ordered in
the same order

Slide 8-23
 INSERT (cont.)
⚫ Example:

U1: INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE

VALUES ('Richard','K','Marini', '653298653', '30-DEC-52',
'98 Oak Forest,Katy,TX', 'M', 37000,'987654321', 4 )

⚫ An alternate form of INSERT specifies explicitly the attribute names

that correspond to the values in the new tuple
⚫ Attributes with NULL values can be left out
⚫ Example: Insert a tuple for a new EMPLOYEE for whom we only
know the FNAME, LNAME, and SSN attributes.

U1A: INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE (FNAME, LNAME, SSN)

VALUES ('Richard', 'Marini', '653298653')

Slide 8-24
 INSERT (cont.)
⚫ Important Note: Only the constraints specified in
the DDL commands are automatically enforced by
the DBMS when updates are applied to the
database
⚫ Another variation of INSERT allows insertion of
multiple tuples resulting from a query into a
relation

Slide 8-25
 INSERT (cont.)
– Example: Suppose we want to create a temporary table that has the name,
number of employees, and total salaries for each department. A table
DEPTS_INFO is created by U3A, and is loaded with the summary
information retrieved from the database by the query in U3B.

U3A: CREATE TABLE DEPTS_INFO

(DEPT_NAME VARCHAR(10),
NO_OF_EMPS INTEGER,
TOTAL_SAL INTEGER);

U3B: INSERT INTO DEPTS_INFO (DEPT_NAME,

NO_OF_EMPS, TOTAL_SAL)
SELECT DNAME, COUNT (*), SUM (SALARY)
FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNUMBER=DNO
GROUP BY DNAME ;

Slide 8-26
 Delete & Update
⚫Delete certain rows (depending on a condition)
– Delete from employee where age<30;

⚫Delete all rows

– Delete from employee;

⚫Modifies data in existing rows

– Update employee SET salary = 2000
WHERE emp_Name = ‘Sara John’
⚫ After using any DML statement (insert, delete, update), save
the changes using the command: Commit
⚫ In Case you want to undo your DML statments use the
command: Rollback

Slide 8-27
 DELETE
⚫ Removes tuples from a relation
⚫ Includes a WHERE-clause to select the tuples to be deleted
⚫ Tuples are deleted from only one table at a time (unless
CASCADE is specified on a referential integrity
constraint)
⚫ A missing WHERE-clause specifies that all tuples in the
relation are to be deleted; the table then becomes an empty
table
⚫ The number of tuples deleted depends on the number of
tuples in the relation that satisfy the WHERE-clause
⚫ Referential integrity should be enforced

Slide 8-28
 DELETE (cont.)

⚫ Delete Syntax:
Delete from TableName, eg. : Delete from employee
– Just deleting all the rows from a table leaves a “blank” table with column
names and types
⚫ Truncate Syntax:
Truncate Table TableName, eg. : Truncate table employee
– Quicker way for deleting all the rows from a table
– It releases the space used by the table
Drop Syntax:
Drop TABLE TableName, eg. : Drop table employee
– Remove the table completely from the database

Slide 8-29
 DELETE (cont.)
⚫ Examples:
U4A: DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE LNAME='Brown’

U4B: DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE

WHERE SSN='123456789’

U4C: DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE

WHERE DNO IN
(SELECT DNUMBER
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research')

U4D: DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE

Slide 8-30
 UPDATE
⚫ Used to modify attribute values of one or more
selected tuples
⚫ A WHERE-clause selects the tuples to be modified
⚫ An additional SET-clause specifies the attributes
to be modified and their new values
⚫ Each command modifies tuples in the same
relation
⚫ Referential integrity should be enforced

Slide 8-31
 UPDATE (cont.)
⚫ Example: Change the location and controlling department
number of project number 10 to 'Bellaire' and 5,
respectively.

U5: UPDATE PROJECT

SET PLOCATION = 'Bellaire', DNUM = 5
WHERE PNUMBER=10

Slide 8-32
 UPDATE (cont.)
⚫ Example: Give all employees in the 'Research' department a 10% raise
in salary.

U6: UPDATE EMPLOYEE

SET SALARY = SALARY *1.1
WHERE DNO IN (SELECT DNUMBER
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research')

⚫ In this request, the modified SALARY value depends on the original

SALARY value in each tuple
⚫ The reference to the SALARY attribute on the right of = refers to the old
SALARY value before modification
⚫ The reference to the SALARY attribute on the left of = refers to the new
SALARY value after modification

Slide 8-33
 Retrieval Queries in SQL

⚫ SQL has one basic statement for retrieving information

from a database; the SELECT statement
⚫ Basic form of the SQL SELECT statement is called a
mapping or a SELECT-FROM-WHERE block
SELECT <attribute list>
FROM <table list>
WHERE <condition>

– <attribute list> is a list of attribute names whose values are to be

retrieved by the query
– <table list> is a list of the relation names required to process the
query
– <condition> is a conditional (Boolean) expression that identifies
the tuples to be retrieved by the query

Slide 8-34
Relational Database Schema--Figure 5.5

Slide 8-35
 Populated
Database--Fig.5.6

Slide 8-36
 Simple SQL Queries
⚫ All subsequent examples use the COMPANY
database
⚫ Example of a simple query on one relation
⚫ Query 0: Retrieve the birthdate and address of the
employee whose name is 'John B. Smith'.

Q0: SELECT BDATE, ADDRESS

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE FNAME='John' AND MINIT='B’
AND LNAME='Smith’

Slide 8-37
 Simple SQL Queries (cont.)
⚫ Query 1: Retrieve the name and address of all employees
who work for the 'Research' department.

Q1: SELECT FNAME, LNAME,

ADDRESS
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research' AND
DNUMBER=DNO

– (DNAME='Research') is a selection condition

(DNUMBER=DNO) is a join condition
Slide 8-38
 Simple SQL Queries (cont.)
⚫ Query 2: For every project located in 'Stafford', list the project number, the
controlling department number, and the department manager's last name,
address, and birthdate.

Q2: SELECT PNUMBER, DNUM, LNAME, BDATE, ADDRESS

FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNUM=DNUMBER AND MGRSSN=SSN
AND PLOCATION='Stafford'

– In Q2, there are two join conditions

– The join condition DNUM=DNUMBER relates a project to its controlling
department
– The join condition MGRSSN=SSN relates the controlling department to
the employee who manages that department

Slide 8-39
 Aliases, * and DISTINCT,
Empty WHERE-clause
⚫ In SQL, we can use the same name for two (or more)
attributes as long as the attributes are in different relations
A query that refers to two or more attributes with the same
name must qualify the attribute name with the relation
name by prefixing the relation name to the attribute name
Example:

⚫ EMPLOYEE.LNAME, DEPARTMENT.DNAME

Slide 8-40
 ALIASES
⚫ Some queries need to refer to the same relation twice
⚫ In this case, aliases are given to the relation name
⚫ Query 8: For each employee, retrieve the employee's name, and the name
of his or her immediate supervisor.

Q8: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME,

S.LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE E S
WHERE E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN

– In Q8, the alternate relation names E and S are called aliases or tuple
variables for the EMPLOYEE relation
– We can think of E and S as two different copies of EMPLOYEE; E
represents employees in role of supervisees and S represents
employees in role of supervisors

Slide 8-41
 ALIASES (cont.)
– Aliasing can also be used in any SQL query for convenience
Can also use the AS keyword to specify aliases

Q8: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME,

S.LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E, EMPLOYEE AS S
WHERE E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN

Slide 8-42
 UNSPECIFIED
WHERE-clause
⚫ A missing WHERE-clause indicates no condition; hence,
all tuples of the relations in the FROM-clause are selected
⚫ This is equivalent to the condition WHERE TRUE
⚫ Query 9: Retrieve the SSN values for all employees.

Q9: SELECT SSN

FROM EMPLOYEE

⚫ If more than one relation is specified in the FROM-clause

and there is no join condition, then the CARTESIAN
PRODUCT of tuples is selected

Slide 8-43
 UNSPECIFIED
WHERE-clause (cont.)
⚫ Example:

Q10: SELECT SSN, DNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT

– It is extremely important not to overlook specifying any selection and

join conditions in the WHERE-clause; otherwise, incorrect and very
large relations may result

Slide 8-44
 USE OF *

⚫ To retrieve all the attribute values of the selected tuples, a * is

used, which stands for all the attributes
Examples:

Q1C: SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNO=5

Q1D: SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research' AND
DNO=DNUMBER

Slide 8-45
 USE OF DISTINCT
⚫ SQL does not treat a relation as a set; duplicate tuples can
appear
⚫ To eliminate duplicate tuples in a query result, the keyword
DISTINCT is used
⚫ For example, the result of Q11 may have duplicate
SALARY values whereas Q11A does not have any
duplicate values

Q11: SELECT SALARY

FROM EMPLOYEE

Q11A: SELECT DISTINCT SALARY

FROM EMPLOYEE

Slide 8-46
 SET OPERATIONS
⚫ SQL has directly incorporated some set operations
⚫ There is a union operation (UNION), and in some
versions of SQL there are set difference (MINUS)
and intersection (INTERSECT) operations
⚫ The resulting relations of these set operations are
sets of tuples; duplicate tuples are eliminated from
the result
⚫ The set operations apply only to union compatible
relations ; the two relations must have the same
attributes and the attributes must appear in the
same order

Slide 8-47
 SET OPERATIONS (cont.)
⚫ Query 4: Make a list of all project numbers for projects that involve an
employee whose last name is 'Smith' as a worker or as a manager of
the department that controls the project.

Q4: (SELECT PNAME

FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNUM=DNUMBER AND MGRSSN=SSN
AND LNAME='Smith')
UNION (SELECT PNAME
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE
WHERE PNUMBER=PNO AND ESSN=SSN AND
LNAME='Smith')

Slide 8-48
 NESTING OF QUERIES
⚫ A complete SELECT query, called a nested query , can be specified
within the WHERE-clause of another query, called the outer query
⚫ Many of the previous queries can be specified in an alternative form
using nesting
⚫ Query 1: Retrieve the name and address of all employees who work for
the 'Research' department.

Q1: SELECT FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNO IN (SELECT DNUMBER
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research' )

Slide 8-49
 NESTING OF QUERIES
(cont.)
⚫ The nested query selects the number of the 'Research' department
⚫ The outer query select an EMPLOYEE tuple if its DNO value is in the
result of either nested query
⚫ The comparison operator IN compares a value v with a set (or multi-set)
of values V, and evaluates to TRUE if v is one of the elements in V
⚫ In general, we can have several levels of nested queries
⚫ A reference to an unqualified attribute refers to the relation declared in
the innermost nested query
⚫ In this example, the nested query is not correlated with the outer query

Slide 8-50
 CORRELATED NESTED
QUERIES
⚫ If a condition in the WHERE-clause of a nested query references an
attribute of a relation declared in the outer query , the two queries are
said to be correlated
⚫ The result of a correlated nested query is different for each tuple (or
combination of tuples) of the relation(s) the outer query
⚫ Query 12: Retrieve the name of each employee who has a dependent
with the same first name as the employee.

Q12: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE E.SSN IN (SELECT ESSN
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE ESSN=E.SSN AND
E.FNAME=DEPENDENT_NAME)

Slide 8-51
 CORRELATED NESTED
QUERIES (cont.)
– In Q12, the nested query has a different result for each
tuple in the outer query
– A query written with nested SELECT... FROM...
WHERE... blocks and using the = or IN comparison
operators can always be expressed as a single block
query. For example, Q12 may be written as in Q12A

Q12A: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE E, DEPENDENT D
WHERE E.SSN=D.ESSN AND
E.FNAME=D.DEPENDENT_NAME

Slide 8-52
 THE EXISTS FUNCTION
⚫EXISTS is used to check whether the result
of a correlated nested query is empty
(contains no tuples) or not
⚫We can formulate Query 12 in an alternative
form that uses EXISTS as Q12B below

Slide 8-53
THE EXISTS FUNCTION (cont.)
⚫ Query 12: Retrieve the name of each employee who
has a dependent with the same first name as the
employee.

Q12B: SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE SSN=ESSN AND
FNAME=DEPENDENT_NAME)

Slide 8-54
THE EXISTS FUNCTION (cont.)
⚫ Query 6: Retrieve the names of employees who have no
dependents.

Q6: SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE SSN=ESSN)

– In Q6, the correlated nested query retrieves all DEPENDENT tuples

related to an EMPLOYEE tuple. If none exist , the EMPLOYEE tuple
is selected

Slide 8-55
 EXPLICIT SETS
⚫ It is also possible to use an explicit (enumerated) set of
values in the WHERE-clause rather than a nested query
⚫ Query 13: Retrieve the social security numbers of all
employees who work on project number 1, 2, or 3.

Q13: SELECT DISTINCT ESSN

FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE PNO IN (1, 2, 3)

Slide 8-56
 NULLS IN SQL QUERIES
⚫ SQL allows queries that check if a value is NULL (missing
or undefined or not applicable)
⚫ SQL uses IS or IS NOT to compare NULLs because it
considers each NULL value distinct from other NULL
values, so equality comparison is not appropriate .
⚫ Query 14: Retrieve the names of all employees who do not
have supervisors.
Q14: SELECT FNAME, LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE SUPERSSN IS NULL
Note: If a join condition is specified, tuples with NULL
values for the join attributes are not included in the result

Slide 8-57
 AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS

⚫ Include COUNT, SUM, MAX, MIN, and AVG

⚫ Query 15: Find the maximum salary, the minimum salary, and
the average salary among all employees.

Q15: SELECT MAX(SALARY),

MIN(SALARY), AVG(SALARY)
FROM EMPLOYEE

– Some SQL implementations may not allow more than one

function in the SELECT-clause

Slide 8-58
 AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS
(cont.)
⚫ Query 16: Find the maximum salary, the minimum salary,
and the average salary among employees who work for the
'Research' department.

Q16: SELECT MAX(SALARY), MIN(SALARY),

AVG(SALARY)
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNO=DNUMBER AND
DNAME='Research'

Slide 8-59
 AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS
(cont.)
⚫ Queries 17 and 18: Retrieve the total number of employees
in the company (Q17), and the number of employees in the
'Research' department (Q18).

Q17: SELECT COUNT (*)

FROM EMPLOYEE

Q18: SELECT COUNT (*)

FROM EMPLOYEE,
DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNO=DNUMBER AND
DNAME='Research’

Slide 8-60
 GROUPING
⚫ In many cases, we want to apply the aggregate
functions to subgroups of tuples in a relation
⚫ Each subgroup of tuples consists of the set of
tuples that have the same value for the grouping
attribute(s)
⚫ The function is applied to each subgroup
independently
⚫ SQL has a GROUP BY-clause for specifying the
grouping attributes, which must also appear in the
SELECT-clause

Slide 8-61
 GROUPING (cont.)
⚫ Query 20: For each department, retrieve the department number, the
number of employees in the department, and their average salary.

Q20: SELECT DNO, COUNT (*), AVG (SALARY)

FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY DNO

– In Q20, the EMPLOYEE tuples are divided into groups--each

group having the same value for the grouping attribute DNO
– The COUNT and AVG functions are applied to each such group of
tuples separately
– The SELECT-clause includes only the grouping attribute and the
functions to be applied on each group of tuples
– A join condition can be used in conjunction with grouping

Slide 8-62
 GROUPING (cont.)
⚫ Query 21: For each project, retrieve the project number, project
name, and the number of employees who work on that project.

Q21: SELECT PNUMBER, PNAME, COUNT (*)

FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE PNUMBER=PNO
GROUP BY PNUMBER, PNAME

– In this case, the grouping and functions are applied after the joining of
the two relations

Slide 8-63
 THE HAVING-CLAUSE
⚫Sometimes we want to retrieve the values of
these functions for only those groups that
satisfy certain conditions
⚫The HAVING-clause is used for specifying
a selection condition on groups (rather than
on individual tuples)

Slide 8-64
 THE HAVING-CLAUSE (cont.)

⚫ Query 22: For each project on which more than two

employees work , retrieve the project number, project
name, and the number of employees who work on that
project.

Q22: SELECT PNUMBER, PNAME, COUNT

(*)
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE PNUMBER=PNO
GROUP BY PNUMBER, PNAME
HAVING COUNT (*) > 2

Slide 8-65
 SUBSTRING COMPARISON
⚫The LIKE comparison operator is used to
compare partial strings
⚫Two reserved characters are used: '%' (or '*'
in some implementations) replaces an
arbitrary number of characters, and '_'
replaces a single arbitrary character

Slide 8-66
 SUBSTRING COMPARISON
(cont.)
⚫ Query 25: Retrieve all employees whose address is in
Houston, Texas. Here, the value of the ADDRESS attribute
must contain the substring 'Houston,TX'.

Q25: SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE ADDRESS LIKE
'%Houston,TX%’

Slide 8-67
 SUBSTRING COMPARISON
(cont.)
⚫ Query 26: Retrieve all employees who were born during the
1950s. Here, '5' must be the 8th character of the string
(according to our format for date), so the BDATE value is
'_______5_', with each underscore as a place holder for a
single arbitrary character.

Q26: SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE BDATE LIKE '_______5_’

⚫ The LIKE operator allows us to get around the fact that each
value is considered atomic and indivisible; hence, in SQL,
character string attribute values are not atomic
Slide 8-68
 ARITHMETIC OPERATIONS

⚫ The standard arithmetic operators '+', '-'. '*', and '/' (for addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division, respectively) can be
applied to numeric values in an SQL query result
⚫ Query 27: Show the effect of giving all employees who work
on the 'ProductX' project a 10% raise.

Q27: SELECT FNAME, LNAME, 1.1*SALARY

FROM EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, PROJECT
WHERE SSN=ESSN AND PNO=PNUMBER AND
PNAME='ProductX’

Slide 8-69
 ORDER BY

⚫ The ORDER BY clause is used to sort the tuples in a

query result based on the values of some attribute(s)
⚫ Query 28: Retrieve a list of employees and the
projects each works in, ordered by the employee's
department, and within each department ordered
alphabetically by employee last name.
Q28: SELECT DNAME, LNAME, FNAME, PNAME
FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE,
WORKS_ON, PROJECT
WHERE DNUMBER=DNO AND SSN=ESSN
AND PNO=PNUMBER
ORDER BY DNAME, LNAME

Slide 8-70
 ORDER BY (cont.)

⚫ The default order is in ascending order of values

⚫ We can specify the keyword DESC if we want a
descending order; the keyword ASC can be used to
explicitly specify ascending order, even though it is
the default

Slide 8-71
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL
⚫ Can specify a "joined relation" in the FROM-clause
⚫ Looks like any other relation but is the result of a join
⚫ Allows the user to specify different types of joins (regular
"theta" JOIN, NATURAL JOIN, LEFT OUTER JOIN,
RIGHT OUTER JOIN, CROSS JOIN, etc)

Slide 8-72
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL (cont.)
⚫ Examples:

Q8: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME, S.LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE E S
WHERE E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN

can be written as:

Q8: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME, S.LNAME

FROM (EMPLOYEE E LEFT OUTER JOIN EMPLOYEES
ON E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN)

Q1: SELECT FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS

FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research' AND DNUMBER=DNO

Slide 8-73
 Joined Relations Feature
in
⚫ could be written as:
SQL (cont.)
Q1: SELECT FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS
FROM (EMPLOYEE JOIN DEPARTMENT
ON DNUMBER=DNO)
WHERE DNAME='Research’

or as:

Q1: SELECT FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS

FROM (EMPLOYEE NATURAL JOIN DEPARTMENT
AS DEPT(DNAME, DNO, MSSN, MSDATE)
WHERE DNAME='Research’

Slide 8-74
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL (cont.)
⚫ Another Example;
– Q2 could be written as follows; this illustrates multiple
joins in the joined tables

Q2: SELECT PNUMBER, DNUM,

LNAME, BDATE,
ADDRESS
FROM (PROJECT JOIN
DEPARTMENT ON
DNUM=DNUMBER) JOIN
EMPLOYEE ON
MGRSSN=SSN) )
WHERE PLOCATION='Stafford’

Slide 8-75
 Summary of SQL Queries
⚫ A query in SQL can consist of up to six clauses, but only
the first two, SELECT and FROM, are mandatory. The
clauses are specified in the following order:

SELECT <attribute list>

FROM <table list>
[WHERE <condition>]
[GROUP BY <grouping attribute(s)>]
[HAVING <group condition>]
[ORDER BY <attribute list>]

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 Summary of SQL Queries
(cont.)
⚫ The SELECT-clause lists the attributes or functions to be
retrieved
⚫ The FROM-clause specifies all relations (or aliases) needed in
the query but not those needed in nested queries
⚫ The WHERE-clause specifies the conditions for selection and
join of tuples from the relations specified in the FROM-clause
⚫ GROUP BY specifies grouping attributes
⚫ HAVING specifies a condition for selection of groups
⚫ ORDER BY specifies an order for displaying the result of a
query
⚫ A query is evaluated by first applying the WHERE-clause, then
GROUP BY and HAVING, and finally the SELECT-clause

Slide 8-77