Chapter 5: Advanced SQL

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Outline

 Accessing SQL From a Programming Language

 Functions and Procedures
 Triggers
 Recursive Queries
 Advanced Aggregation Features

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Accessing SQL from a Programming Language

A database programmer must have access to a general-

purpose programming language for at least two reasons
 Not all queries can be expressed in SQL, since SQL does
not provide the full expressive power of a general-
purpose language.
 Non-declarative actions -- such as printing a report,
interacting with a user, or sending the results of a query
to a graphical user interface -- cannot be done from
within SQL.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Accessing SQL from a Programming Language
(Cont.)

There are two approaches to accessing SQL from a general-

purpose programming language
 A general-purpose program -- can connect to and
communicate with a database server using a collection
of functions
 Embedded SQL -- provides a means by which a program
can interact with a database server.
 The SQL statements are translated at compile time
into function calls.
 At runtime, these function calls connect to the
database using an API that provides dynamic SQL
facilities.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 JDBC

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 JDBC
 JDBC is a Java API for communicating with database
systems supporting SQL.
 JDBC supports a variety of features for querying and
updating data, and for retrieving query results.
 JDBC also supports metadata retrieval, such as querying
about relations present in the database and the names and
types of relation attributes.
 Model for communicating with the database:
 Open a connection
 Create a “statement” object
 Execute queries using the statement object to send
queries and fetch results
 Exception mechanism to handle errors

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 JDBC Code

public static void JDBCexample(String dbid, String userid, String

passwd)
{
try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:oracle:thin:@db.yale.edu:2000:univdb", userid,
passwd);
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
)
{
… Do Actual Work ….
}
catch (SQLException sqle) {
System.out.println("SQLException : " + sqle);
}
}

NOTE: Above syntax works with Java 7, and JDBC 4 onwards.

Resources opened in “try (….)” syntax (“try with resources”) are
automatically closed at the end of the try block
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 JDBC Code for Older Versions of
Java/JDBC
public static void JDBCexample(String dbid, String userid, String
passwd)
{
try {
Class.forName ("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:oracle:thin:@db.yale.edu:2000:univdb", userid,
passwd);
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
… Do Actual Work ….
stmt.close();
conn.close();
}
catch (SQLException sqle) {
System.out.println("SQLException : " + sqle);
}
}
NOTE: Class.forName is not required from JDBC 4 onwards. The try
with resources syntax in prev slide is preferred for Java 7 onwards.
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 JDBC Code (Cont.)

 Update to database

try {
stmt.executeUpdate(
"insert into instructor values('77987', 'Kim', 'Physics',
98000)");
} catch (SQLException sqle)
{
System.out.println("Could not insert tuple. " + sqle);
}
 Execute query and fetch and print results
ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery(
"select dept_name, avg (salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name");
while (rset.next()) {
System.out.println(rset.getString("dept_name") + " " +
rset.getFloat(2));
}

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 JDBC SUBSECTIONS

 Connecting to the Database

 Shipping SQL Statements to the Database System
 Exceptions and Resource Management
 Retrieving the Result of a Query
 Prepared Statements
 Callable Statements
 Metadata Features
 Other Features
 Database Access from Python

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 JDBC Code Details

 Getting result fields:

 rs.getString(“dept_name”) and rs.getString(1) equivalent
if dept_name is the first argument of select result.
 Dealing with Null values
int a = rs.getInt(“a”);
if (rs.wasNull()) Systems.out.println(“Got null value”);

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 Prepared Statement
 PreparedStatement pStmt = conn.prepareStatement(
"insert into instructor values(?,?,?,?)");
pStmt.setString(1, "88877");
pStmt.setString(2, "Perry");
pStmt.setString(3, "Finance");
pStmt.setInt(4, 125000);
pStmt.executeUpdate();
pStmt.setString(1, "88878");
pStmt.executeUpdate();
 WARNING: always use prepared statements when taking an
input from the user and adding it to a query
 NEVER create a query by concatenating strings
 "insert into instructor values(' " + ID + " ', ' " + name + " ', " + " ' + dept
name + " ', " ' balance + ')“
 What if name is “D'Souza”?

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 SQL Injection
 Suppose query is constructed using
 "select * from instructor where name = '" + name + "'"
 Suppose the user, instead of entering a name, enters:
 X' or 'Y' = 'Y
 then the resulting statement becomes:
 "select * from instructor where name = '" + "X' or 'Y' = 'Y"
+ "'"
 which is:
 select * from instructor where name = 'X' or 'Y' = 'Y'
 User could have even used
 X'; update instructor set salary = salary + 10000; --
 Prepared stament internally uses:
"select * from instructor where name = 'X\' or \'Y\' = \'Y'
 Always use prepared statements, with user inputs as
parameters

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 Metadata Features
 ResultSet metadata
 E.g.after executing query to get a ResultSet rs:
 ResultSetMetaData rsmd = rs.getMetaData();
for(int i = 1; i <= rsmd.getColumnCount(); i++) {
System.out.println(rsmd.getColumnName(i));
System.out.println(rsmd.getColumnTypeName(i));
}
 How is this useful?

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 Metadata (Cont)
 Database metadata
 DatabaseMetaData dbmd = conn.getMetaData();
// Arguments to getColumns: Catalog, Schema-pattern, Table-
pattern,
// and Column-Pattern
// Returns: One row for each column; row has a number of
attributes
// such as COLUMN_NAME, TYPE_NAME
// The value null indicates all Catalogs/Schemas.
// The value “” indicates current catalog/schema
// The value “%” has the same meaning as SQL like clause
ResultSet rs = dbmd.getColumns(null, "univdb",
"department", "%");
while( rs.next()) {
System.out.println(rs.getString("COLUMN_NAME"),
rs.getString("TYPE_NAME");
}
 And where is this useful?

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 Metadata (Cont)
 Database metadata
 DatabaseMetaData dbmd = conn.getMetaData();
// Arguments to getTables: Catalog, Schema-pattern, Table-
pattern,
// and Table-Type
// Returns: One row for each table; row has a number of
attributes
// such as TABLE_NAME, TABLE_CAT, TABLE_TYPE, ..
// The value null indicates all Catalogs/Schemas.
// The value “” indicates current catalog/schema
// The value “%” has the same meaning as SQL like clause
// The last attribute is an array of types of tables to return.
// TABLE means only regular tables
ResultSet rs = dbmd.getTables (“”, "", “%", new String[]
{“TABLES”});
while( rs.next()) {
System.out.println(rs.getString(“TABLE_NAME“));
}
 And where is this useful?
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 Finding Primary Keys

 DatabaseMetaData dmd = connection.getMetaData();

// Arguments below are: Catalog, Schema, and Table

// The value “” for Catalog/Schema indicates current
catalog/schema
// The value null indicates all catalogs/schemas
ResultSet rs = dmd.getPrimaryKeys(“”, “”, tableName);

while(rs.next()){
// KEY_SEQ indicates the position of the attribute in
// the primary key, which is required if a primary key has
multiple
// attributes
System.out.println(rs.getString(“KEY_SEQ”),
rs.getString("COLUMN_NAME");
}

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Transaction Control in JDBC

 By default, each SQL statement is treated as a separate

transaction that is committed automatically
 bad idea for transactions with multiple updates
 Can turn off automatic commit on a connection
 conn.setAutoCommit(false);
 Transactions must then be committed or rolled back
explicitly
 conn.commit(); or
 conn.rollback();
 conn.setAutoCommit(true) turns on automatic commit.

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 Other JDBC Features
 Calling functions and procedures
 CallableStatement cStmt1 = conn.prepareCall("{? = call
some function(?)}");
 CallableStatement cStmt2 = conn.prepareCall("{call some
procedure(?,?)}");
 Handling large object types
 getBlob() and getClob() that are similar to the getString()
method, but return objects of type Blob and Clob,
respectively
 get data from these objects by getBytes()
 associate an open stream with Java Blob or Clob object
to update large objects
 blob.setBlob(int parameterIndex, InputStream
inputStream).

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 JDBC Resources

 JDBC Basics Tutorial

• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/index.html

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 SQLJ
 JDBC is overly dynamic, errors cannot be caught by
compiler
 SQLJ: embedded SQL in Java
 #sql iterator deptInfoIter ( String dept name, int avgSal);
deptInfoIter iter = null;
#sql iter = { select dept_name, avg(salary) from
instructor
group by dept name };
while (iter.next()) {
String deptName = iter.dept_name();
int avgSal = iter.avgSal();
System.out.println(deptName + " " + avgSal);
}
iter.close();

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 ODBC

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 ODBC

 Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) standard

 standard for application program to communicate
with a database server.
 application program interface (API) to
 open a connection with a database,
 send queries and updates,
 get back results.
 Applications such as GUI, spreadsheets, etc. can use
ODBC

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 Embedded SQL

 The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety of

programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Fortran, and PL/1,
 A language to which SQL queries are embedded is referred to
as a host language, and the SQL structures permitted in the
host language comprise embedded SQL.
 The basic form of these languages follows that of the System R
embedding of SQL into PL/1.
 EXEC SQL statement is used in the host language to identify
embedded SQL request to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded SQL statement >;
Note: this varies by language:
 In some languages, like COBOL, the semicolon is replaced
with END-EXEC
 In Java embedding uses # SQL { …. };

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 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 Before executing any SQL statements, the program must

first connect to the database. This is done using:
EXEC-SQL connect to server user user-name using
password;
Here, server identifies the server to which a connection is
to be established.
 Variables of the host language can be used within
embedded SQL statements. They are preceded by a colon
(:) to distinguish from SQL variables (e.g., :credit_amount )
 Variables used as above must be declared within DECLARE
section, as illustrated below. The syntax for declaring the
variables, however, follows the usual host language syntax.
EXEC-SQL BEGIN DECLARE SECTION}
int credit-amount ;
EXEC-SQL END DECLARE SECTION;

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 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 To write an embedded SQL query, we use the

declare c cursor for <SQL query>
statement. The variable c is used to identify the query
 Example:
 From within a host language, find the ID and name of
students who have completed more than the number
of credits stored in variable credit_amount in the host
langue
 Specify the query in SQL as follows:
EXEC SQL
declare c cursor for
select ID, name
from student
where tot_cred > :credit_amount
END_EXEC

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 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 The open statement for our example is as follows:

EXEC SQL open c ;
This statement causes the database system to execute the
query and to save the results within a temporary relation.
The query uses the value of the host-language variable
credit-amount at the time the open statement is executed.
 The fetch statement causes the values of one tuple in the
query result to be placed on host language variables.
EXEC SQL fetch c into :si, :sn END_EXEC

Repeated calls to fetch get successive tuples in the query

result

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 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 A variable called SQLSTATE in the SQL communication

area (SQLCA) gets set to '02000' to indicate no more data
is available
 The close statement causes the database system to
delete the temporary relation that holds the result of the
query.
EXEC SQL close c ;
Note: above details vary with language. For example, the
Java embedding defines Java iterators to step
through result tuples.

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 Updates Through Embedded SQL

 Embedded SQL expressions for database modification

(update, insert, and delete)
 Can update tuples fetched by cursor by declaring that the
cursor is for update
EXEC SQL
declare c cursor for
select *
from instructor
where dept_name = 'Music'
for update
 We then iterate through the tuples by performing fetch
operations on the cursor (as illustrated earlier), and after
fetching each tuple we execute the following code:
update instructor
set salary = salary + 1000
where current of c

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 Functions and
Procedures

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 Functions and Procedures

 Functions and procedures allow “business logic” to be

stored in the database and executed from SQL statements.
 These can be defined either by the procedural component of
SQL or by an external programming language such as Java,
C, or C++.
 The syntax we present here is defined by the SQL standard.
 Most databases implement nonstandard versions of this
syntax.

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 Declaring SQL Functions
 Define a function that, given the name of a department,
returns the count of the number of instructors in that
department.
create function dept_count (dept_name varchar(20))
returns integer
begin
declare d_count integer;
select count (* ) into d_count
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name = dept_name
return d_count;
end
 The function dept_count can be used to find the department
names and budget of all departments with more that 12
instructors.
select dept_name, budget
from department
where dept_count (dept_name ) > 12

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 Table Functions

 The SQL standard supports functions that can return tables as

results; such functions are called table functions
 Example: Return all instructors in a given department
create function instructor_of (dept_name char(20))
returns table (
ID varchar(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
return table
(select ID, name, dept_name, salary
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name =
instructor_of.dept_name)
 Usage
select *
from table (instructor_of ('Music'))

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 Language Constructs (Cont.)
 For loop
 Permits iteration over all results of a query
 Example: Find the budget of all departments

declare n integer default 0;

for r as
select budget from department
where dept_name = 'Music'
do
set n = n + r.budget
end for

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 External Language Routines
 SQL allows us to define functions in a programming
language such as Java, C#, C or C++.
 Can be more efficient than functions defined in SQL, and
computations that cannot be carried out in SQL\can be
executed by these functions.
 Declaring external language procedures and functions

create procedure dept_count_proc(in dept_name

varchar(20),
out count integer)
language C
external name '/usr/avi/bin/dept_count_proc'

create function dept_count(dept_name varchar(20))

returns integer
language C
external name '/usr/avi/bin/dept_count'

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Security with External Language
Routines

 To deal with security problems, we can do on of the

following:
 Use sandbox techniques
 That is, use a safe language like Java, which cannot
be used to access/damage other parts of the
database code.
 Run external language functions/procedures in a
separate process, with no access to the database
process’ memory.
 Parameters and results communicated via inter-
process communication
 Both have performance overheads
 Many database systems support both above approaches as
well as direct executing in database system address space.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Triggers

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Triggers
 A trigger is a set of SQL statements that reside in system
memory with unique names. It is a specialized category of
stored procedure that is called automatically when a database
server event occurs. Each trigger is always associated with a
table.

 Triggers are stored programs, which are automatically executed or fired when some
events occur. Triggers are, in fact, written to be executed in response to any of the
following events −
• A database manipulation (DML) statement (DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE)
• A database definition (DDL) statement (CREATE, ALTER, or DROP).
• A database operation (SERVERERROR, LOGON, LOGOFF, STARTUP, or
SHUTDOWN).
 Triggers can be defined on the table, view, schema, or database with which the event is
associated.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Triggers

 Benefits of Triggers
 Triggers can be written for the following purposes −
• Generating some derived column values automatically
• Enforcing referential integrity
• Event logging and storing information on table access
• Auditing
• Synchronous replication of tables
• Imposing security authorizations
• Preventing invalid transactions

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Triggers
Creating Triggers The syntax for creating a trigger is −
CREATE [OR REPLACE ] TRIGGER trigger_name
{BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF }
{INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE}
[OF col_name]
ON table_name
[REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n]
[FOR EACH ROW]
WHEN (condition)
DECLARE
Declaration-statements
BEGIN
Executable-statements
EXCEPTION
Exception-handling-statements
END;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and

 Triggers
Where,
• CREATE [OR REPLACE] TRIGGER trigger_name − Creates or replaces an existing
trigger with the trigger_name.
• {BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF} − This specifies when the trigger will be
executed. The INSTEAD OF clause is used for creating trigger on a view.
• {INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE} − This specifies the DML operation.
• [OF col_name] − This specifies the column name that will be updated.
• [ON table_name] − This specifies the name of the table associated with the trigger.
• [REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n] − This allows you to refer new and old values
for various DML statements, such as INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.
• [FOR EACH ROW] − This specifies a row-level trigger, i.e., the trigger will be
executed for each row being affected. Otherwise the trigger will execute just once when
the SQL statement is executed, which is called a table level trigger.
• WHEN (condition) − This provides a condition for rows for which the trigger would
fire. This clause is valid only for row-level triggers.

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 Triggers

Example
To start with, we will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created
and used in the previous chapters −
 Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+-----------
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS |
SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+-------------
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad |
2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi |
1500.00 |
| 3 | Kaushik | 23 | Kota |
2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai |
6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal |
8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP |
4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ ---------
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 Triggers
 The following program creates a row-level trigger for the
customers table that would fire for INSERT or UPDATE or
DELETE operations performed on the CUSTOMERS table. This
trigger will display the salary difference between the old
values and new values −
 CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER display_salary_changes
 BEFORE DELETE OR INSERT OR UPDATE ON customers
 FOR EACH ROW
 WHEN (NEW.ID > 0)
 DECLARE
 sal_diff number;
 BEGIN
 sal_diff := :NEW.salary - :OLD.salary;
 dbms_output.put_line('Old salary: ' || :OLD.salary);
 dbms_output.put_line('New salary: ' || :NEW.salary);
 dbms_output.put_line('Salary difference: ' || sal_diff);
 END;
 /
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 Triggers

 When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result
 Trigger created.
The following points need to be considered here −

 OLD and NEW references are not available for table-level triggers,
rather you can use them for record-level triggers.

 If you want to query the table in the same trigger, then you should
use the AFTER keyword, because triggers can query the table or
change it again only after the initial changes are applied and the
table is back in a consistent state.

 The above trigger has been written in such a way that it will fire
before any DELETE or INSERT or UPDATE operation on the table, but
you can write your trigger on a single or multiple operations, for
example BEFORE DELETE, which will fire whenever a record will be
deleted using the DELETE operation on the table.

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 Triggers
 Triggering a Trigger
 Let us perform some DML operations on the CUSTOMERS table. Here is one
INSERT statement, which will create a new record in the table −
INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (7, 'Kriti', 22, 'HP', 7500.00 );
When a record is created in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create
trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −
Old salary:
New salary: 7500
Salary difference:
Because this is a new record, old salary is not available and the above result comes as
null. Let us now perform one more DML operation on the CUSTOMERS table. The
UPDATE statement will update an existing record in the table −

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 Triggers

 UPDATE customers
 SET salary = salary + 500
 WHERE id = 2;
 When a record is updated in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create
trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following
result −
 Old salary: 1500
 New salary: 2000
 Salary difference: 500

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 Triggers

 A trigger is a statement that is executed automatically by

the system as a side effect of a modification to the
database.
 To design a trigger mechanism, we must:
 Specify the conditions under which the trigger is to be
executed.
 Specify the actions to be taken when the trigger
executes.
 Triggers introduced to SQL standard in SQL:1999, but
supported even earlier using non-standard syntax by most
databases.
 Syntax illustrated here may not work exactly on your
database system; check the system manuals

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 Trigger to Maintain credits_earned value
 create trigger credits_earned after update of takes on (grade)
referencing new row as nrow
referencing old row as orow
for each row
when nrow.grade <> 'F' and nrow.grade is not null
and (orow.grade = 'F' or orow.grade is null)
begin atomic
update student
set tot_cred= tot_cred +
(select credits
from course
where course.course_id= nrow.course_id)
where student.id = nrow.id;
end;

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 Statement Level Triggers

 Instead of executing a separate action for each affected

row, a single action can be executed for all rows affected by
a transaction
 Use for each statement instead of for each row
 Use referencing old table or referencing new table
to refer to temporary tables (called transition tables)
containing the affected rows
 Can be more efficient when dealing with SQL
statements that update a large number of rows

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 When Not To Use Triggers

 Triggers were used earlier for tasks such as

 Maintaining summary data (e.g., total salary of each
department)
 Replicating databases by recording changes to special
relations (called change or delta relations) and having a
separate process that applies the changes over to a
replica
 There are better ways of doing these now:
 Databases today provide built in materialized view
facilities to maintain summary data
 Databases provide built-in support for replication
 Encapsulation facilities can be used instead of triggers in
many cases
 Define methods to update fields
 Carry out actions as part of the update methods instead
of
through a trigger

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 When Not To Use Triggers (Cont.)

 Risk of unintended execution of triggers, for example, when

 Loading data from a backup copy
 Replicating updates at a remote site
 Trigger execution can be disabled before such actions.
 Other risks with triggers:
 Error leading to failure of critical transactions that set
off the trigger
 Cascading execution

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 Recursive Queries

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 Recursion in SQL
 SQL:1999 permits recursive view definition
 Example: find which courses are a prerequisite, whether
directly or indirectly, for a specific course
with recursive rec_prereq(course_id, prereq_id) as (
select course_id, prereq_id
from prereq
union
select rec_prereq.course_id, prereq.prereq_id,
from rec_rereq, prereq
where rec_prereq.prereq_id = prereq.course_id
)
select ∗
from rec_prereq;
This example view, rec_prereq, is called the transitive
closure of the prereq relation

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 The Power of Recursion

 Recursive views make it possible to write queries, such as

transitive closure queries, that cannot be written without
recursion or iteration.
 Intuition: Without recursion, a non-recursive non-
iterative program can perform only a fixed number of
joins of prereq with itself
 This can give only a fixed number of levels of
managers
 Given a fixed non-recursive query, we can construct
a database with a greater number of levels of
prerequisites on which the query will not work
 Alternative: write a procedure to iterate as many
times as required
– See procedure findAllPrereqs in book

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 Example of Fixed-Point Computation

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 Advanced Aggregation Features

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 Ranking

 Ranking is done in conjunction with an order by specification.

 Suppose we are given a relation
student_grades(ID, GPA)
giving the grade-point average of each student
 Find the rank of each student.
 select ID, rank() over (order by GPA desc) as s_rank
from student_grades
 An extra order by clause is needed to get them in sorted order
select ID, rank() over (order by GPA desc) as s_rank
from student_grades
order by s_rank
 Ranking may leave gaps: e.g. if 2 students have the same top
GPA, both have rank 1, and the next rank is 3
• dense_rank does not leave gaps, so next dense rank would
be 2

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 Ranking
 Ranking can be done using basic SQL aggregation, but
resultant query is very inefficient
select ID, (1 + (select count(*)
from student_grades B
where B.GPA > A.GPA)) as s_rank
from student_grades A
order by s_rank;

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 Ranking (Cont.)
 Ranking can be done within partition of the data.
 “Find the rank of students within each department.”
select ID, dept_name,
rank () over (partition by dept_name order by GPA
desc)
as dept_rank
from dept_grades
order by dept_name, dept_rank;
 Multiple rank clauses can occur in a single select clause.
 Ranking is done after applying group by clause/aggregation
 Can be used to find top-n results
 More general than the limit n clause supported by many
databases, since it allows top-n within each partition

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 Ranking (Cont.)

 Other ranking functions:

• percent_rank (within partition, if partitioning is done)
• cume_dist (cumulative distribution)
 fraction of tuples with preceding values
• row_number (non-deterministic in presence of
duplicates)
 SQL:1999 permits the user to specify nulls first or nulls last
select ID,
rank ( ) over (order by GPA desc nulls last) as s_rank
from student_grades

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 Ranking (Cont.)

 For a given constant n, the ranking the function ntile(n)

takes the tuples in each partition in the specified order, and
divides them into n buckets with equal numbers of tuples.
 E.g.,
select ID, ntile(4) over (order by GPA desc) as quartile
from student_grades;

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 Windowing

 Used to smooth out random variations.

 E.g., moving average: “Given sales values for each date,
calculate for each date the average of the sales on that day,
the previous day, and the next day”
 Window specification in SQL:
• Given relation sales(date, value)
select date, sum(value) over
(order by date between rows 1 preceding and 1
following)
from sales

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 Windowing

 Examples of other window specifications:

• between rows unbounded preceding and current
• rows unbounded preceding
• range between 10 preceding and current row
 All rows with values between current row value –10 to
current value
• range interval 10 day preceding
 Not including current row

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 Windowing (Cont.)

 Can do windowing within partitions

 E.g., Given a relation transaction (account_number,
date_time, value), where value is positive for a deposit and
negative for a withdrawal
• “Find total balance of each account after each
transaction on the account”
select account_number, date_time,
sum (value) over
(partition by account_number
order by date_time
rows unbounded preceding)
as balance
from transaction
order by account_number, date_time

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 OLAP

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 Data Analysis and OLAP

 Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

• Interactive analysis of data, allowing data to be
summarized and viewed in different ways in an online
fashion (with negligible delay)
 Data that can be modeled as dimension attributes and
measure attributes are called multidimensional data.
• Measure attributes
 measure some value
 can be aggregated upon
 e.g., the attribute number of the sales relation
• Dimension attributes
 define the dimensions on which measure attributes
(or aggregates thereof) are viewed
 e.g., attributes item_name, color, and size of the sales
relation

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 Example sales relation

... ... ... ...

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition ... ... ...
5.75 ... ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 Cross Tabulation of sales by item_name
and color

 The table above is an example of a cross-tabulation (cross-

tab), also referred to as a pivot-table.
• Values for one of the dimension attributes form the row
headers
• Values for another dimension attribute form the column
headers
• Other dimension attributes are listed on top
• Values in individual cells are (aggregates of) the values of
the
dimension attributes that5.76
Database System Concepts - 7 Edition
specify the cell. ©Silberschatz, Korth and
th
 Data Cube

 A data cube is a multidimensional generalization of a cross-tab

 Can have n dimensions; we show 3 below
 Cross-tabs can be used as views on a data cube

What is a Data Cube? A data cube (also called a business intelligence

cube or OLAP cube) is a data structure optimized for fast and efficient
analysis. It enables consolidating or aggregating relevant data into the
cube and then drilling down, slicing and dicing, or pivoting data to view
it from different angles.
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Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.78 ©Silberschatz, Korth and
 Relational Representation of Cross-tabs

 Cross-tabs can be
represented as relations
• We use the value all is
used to represent
aggregates.
• The SQL standard
actually uses null
values in place of all
despite confusion with
regular null values.

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 Extended Aggregation to Support OLAP

 The cube operation computes union of group by’s on every

subset of the specified attributes
 Example relation for this section
sales(item_name, color, clothes_size, quantity)
 E.g., consider the query
select item_name, color, size, sum(number)
from sales
group by cube(item_name, color, size)
This computes the union of eight different groupings of the
sales relation:
{ (item_name, color, size), (item_name, color),
(item_name, size), (color, size),
(item_name), (color),
(size), ()}
where ( ) denotes an empty group by list.
 For each grouping, the result contains the null value
for attributes not present in the grouping.

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 Online Analytical Processing Operations

 Relational representation of cross-tab that we saw earlier, but

with null in place of all, can be computed by
 select item_name, color, sum(number)
from sales
group by cube(item_name, color)
 The function grouping() can be applied on an attribute
• Returns 1 if the value is a null value representing all, and
returns 0 in all other cases.
select item_name, color, size, sum(number),
grouping(item_name) as item_name_flag,
grouping(color) as color_flag,
grouping(size) as size_flag,
from sales
group by cube(item_name, color, size)

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 Online Analytical Processing Operations

 Can use the function decode() in the select clause to replace

such nulls by a value such as all
• E.g., replace item_name in first query by
decode( grouping(item_name), 1, ‘all’, item_name)

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 Extended Aggregation (Cont.)

 The rollup construct generates union on every prefix of

specified list of attributes
 E.g.,
select item_name, color, size, sum(number)
from sales
group by rollup(item_name, color, size)
• Generates union of four groupings:
{ (item_name, color, size), (item_name, color),
(item_name), ( ) }
 Rollup can be used to generate aggregates at multiple levels
of a
hierarchy.
 E.g., suppose table itemcategory(item_name, category) gives
the category of each item. Then
select category, item_name, sum(number)
from sales, itemcategory
where sales.item_name = itemcategory.item_name
group by rollup(category, item_name)
would give a hierarchical summary by item_name and by
category.
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 Extended Aggregation (Cont.)

 Multiple rollups and cubes can be used in a single group by

clause
• Each generates set of group by lists, cross product of
sets gives overall set of group by lists
 E.g.,
select item_name, color, size, sum(number)
from sales
group by rollup(item_name), rollup(color, size)
generates the groupings
{item_name, ()} X {(color, size), (color), ()}
= { (item_name, color, size), (item_name, color),
(item_name),
(color, size), (color), ( ) }

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 Online Analytical Processing Operations

 Pivoting: changing the dimensions used in a cross-tab is

called
 Slicing: creating a cross-tab for fixed values only
• Sometimes called dicing, particularly when values for
multiple dimensions are fixed.
 Rollup: moving from finer-granularity data to a coarser
granularity
 Drill down: The opposite operation - that of moving from
coarser-granularity data to finer-granularity data

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 OLAP Implementation

 The earliest OLAP systems used multidimensional arrays in

memory to store data cubes, and are referred to as
multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) systems.
 OLAP implementations using only relational database
features are called relational OLAP (ROLAP) systems
 Hybrid systems, which store some summaries in memory and
store the base data and other summaries in a relational
database, are called hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) systems.

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 OLAP Implementation (Cont.)
 Early OLAP systems precomputed all possible aggregates
in order to provide online response
 Space and time requirements for doing so can be very
high
 2n combinations of group by
 It suffices to precompute some aggregates, and
compute others on demand from one of the
precomputed aggregates
 Can compute aggregate on (item_name, color) from
an aggregate on (item_name, color, size)
– For all but a few “non-decomposable” aggregates
such as median
– is cheaper than computing it from scratch
 Several optimizations available for computing multiple
aggregates
 Can compute aggregate on (item_name, color) from an
aggregate on (item_name, color, size)
 Can compute aggregates on (item_name, color, size),
(item_name, color) and (item_name) using a single
sorting
of the base data
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 End of Chapter 5

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