Creation of Table in SQL:

SQL data Definition, Data types,

Basic Constraints, and Queries

Copyright © 2004 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Data Definition, Constraints, and
Schema Changes

● Used to CREATE, DROP, and ALTER the

descriptions of the tables (relations) of a
database

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-2
 How to Create a Table With different
types of keys
● SQL is a standard Database language that is
used to create, maintain and retrieve the
data from relational databases like MySQL,
Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.
● In order to create a table with different
types of keys, we must have to know few
Key Constraints.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-3
● Primary Key
● A primary key is a unique identifier for each record in a
table.
● The candidate key is selected to identify tuples uniquely
within the relation.
● Out of all the available candidate keys, a database designer
can identify a primary key.
● The candidate keys that are not selected as the primary key
are called alternate keys.
● Example: For the customer relation, we can choose
customer_id as the primary key.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-4
● Super Key
● An attribute, or set of attributes, that uniquely identifies a
tuple within a relation.

● Example: Consider a customer database then, the

customer_id of the relation customer is sufficient to
distinguish one tuple from another. Thus, customer_id is a
super key. Similarly, the combination of customer_id and
customer_name is a super key for the relation customer.
Here the customer_name is not a super key, because
several people may have the same name.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-5
● Candidate Key
● A super key such that no proper subset is a super key within
the relation.
● Example: The combination of customer_name and
customer_street is sufficient to distinguish the members of the
customer relation. Then both, {customer_id} and
{customer_name, customer_street} are candidate keys.
Although customer_id and customer_name together can
distinguish customer tuples, their combination does not form a
candidate key, since the customer_id alone is a candidate key.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-6
● Foreign Key
● Foreign keys represent the relationships between
tables.
● A foreign key is a column (or a group of columns)
whose values are derived from the primary key of
some other table.
● The table in which a foreign key is defined is called a
Foreign table or Details table.
● The table that defines the primary key and is
referenced by the foreign key is called the Primary
table or Master table.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-7
 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) );

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-8
 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 );
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-9
 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;

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-10
 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.
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-11
 Features Added in SQL2 and
SQL-99

● CREATE SCHEMA
● REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY OPTIONS

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-12
 CREATE SCHEMA
● Specifies a new database schema by giving
it a name

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-13
 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 );
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-14
 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 );

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-15
 Additional Data Types in SQL2 and
SQL-99
Has DATE, TIME, and TIMESTAMP data types
● 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
● TIME(i):
– Made up of hour:minute:second plus i additional digits
specifying fractions of a second
– format is hh:mm:ss:ii...i
● TIMESTAMP:
– Has both DATE and TIME components
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-16
 Additional Data Types in SQL2 and
SQL-99 (cont.)
● INTERVAL:
– Specifies a relative value rather than an absolute value
– Can be DAY/TIME intervals or YEAR/MONTH
intervals
– Can be positive or negative when added to or subtracted
from an absolute value, the result is an absolute value

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-17
Relational Database Schema--Figure 5.5

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-18
 Populated
Database--Fig.5.6

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-19
 INSERT
● 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-20
 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')

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-21
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-22
 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 ;

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-23
 INSERT (cont.)
● Note: The DEPTS_INFO table may not be up-to-date if we
change the tuples in either the DEPARTMENT or the
EMPLOYEE relations after issuing U3B. We have to
create a view (see later) to keep such a table up to date.

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-24
 Populated
Database--Fig.5.6

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-25
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-26
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-27
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-28
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-29
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-30
 Retrieval Queries in SQL
● SQL has one basic statement for retrieving information from a
database; the SELECT statement
● This is not the same as the SELECT operation of the relational algebra
● Important distinction between SQL and the formal relational model;
SQL allows a table (relation) to have two or more tuples that are
identical in all their attribute values
● Hence, an SQL relation (table) is a multi-set (sometimes called a bag)
of tuples; it is not a set of tuples
● SQL relations can be constrained to be sets by specifying PRIMARY
KEY or UNIQUE attributes, or by using the DISTINCT option in a
query

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-31
 Retrieval Queries in SQL
(cont.)
● 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-32
 Simple SQL Queries
● Basic SQL queries correspond to using the SELECT, PROJECT, and
JOIN operations of the relational algebra
● 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’

– Similar to a SELECT-PROJECT pair of relational algebra operations; the

SELECT-clause specifies the projection attributes and the WHERE-clause
specifies the selection condition
– However, the result of the query may contain duplicate tuples
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-33
 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

– Similar to a SELECT-PROJECT-JOIN sequence of relational

algebra operations
– (DNAME='Research') is a selection condition (corresponds to a
SELECT operation in relational algebra)
– (DNUMBER=DNO) is a join condition (corresponds to a JOIN
operation in relational algebra)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-34
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-35
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-36
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-37
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-38
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-39
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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-40
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-41
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-42
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-43
 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')

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-44
 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' )

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-45
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-46
 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)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-47
 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

– The original SQL as specified for SYSTEM R also had a CONTAINS

comparison operator, which is used in conjunction with nested correlated
queries
– This operator was dropped from the language, possibly because of the
difficulty in implementing it efficiently

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-48
 CORRELATED NESTED
QUERIES (cont.)
– Most implementations of SQL do not have this operator
– The CONTAINS operator compares two sets of values , and returns TRUE
if one set contains all values in the other set
(reminiscent of the division operation of algebra).
● Query 3: Retrieve the name of each employee who works on all the projects
controlled by department number 5.

Q3: SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE ( (SELECT PNO
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE SSN=ESSN)
CONTAINS
(SELECT PNUMBER
FROM PROJECT
WHERE DNUM=5) )

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-49
CORRELATED NESTED
QUERIES (cont.)
– In Q3, the second nested query, which is not correlated
with the outer query, retrieves the project numbers of all
projects controlled by department 5
– The first nested query, which is correlated, retrieves the
project numbers on which the employee works, which is
different for each employee tuple because of the
correlation

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-50
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-51
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
WHEREEXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERESSN=ESSN AND
FNAME=DEPENDENT_NAME)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-52
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
– EXISTS is necessary for the expressive power of SQL

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-53
 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)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-54
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-55
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL2
● 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)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-56
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL2 (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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-57
 Joined Relations Feature
●
in
could be written as:
SQL2 (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’

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-58
 Joined Relations Feature
in SQL2 (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’

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-59
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-60
 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'

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-61
 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’

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-62
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-63
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-64
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-65
 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)

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-66
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-67
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-68
 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%’

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-69
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-70
 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’

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-71
 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
Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-72
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-73
 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>]

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-74
 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

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-75
 Specifying Updates in SQL
● There are three SQL commands to modify
the database; INSERT, DELETE, and
UPDATE

Elmasri and Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2004 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe Slide 8-76