Lab 6: Views and SQL Functions

The learning objectives of this lab are to

 Create a simple view

 Manage database constraints in views using WITH CHECK OPTION
 Learn about selected MySQL date and time functions
 Be able to perform string manipulations
 Utilize single row numeric functions
 Perform conversions between data types

6.1 Views

A view is a virtual table based on a SELECT query. The query can contain columns, computed

columns, aliases, and aggregate functions from one or more tables. The tables on which the

view is based are called base tables. You can create a view by using the CREATE VIEW

command:

CREATE VIEW viewname AS SELECT query

The CREATE VIEW statement is a data definition command that stores the subquery

specification—the SELECT statement used to generate the virtual table—in the data

dictionary. For example, to create a view to display the employees first and last name

(EMP_FNAME and EMP_LNAME), the attraction number (ATTRACT_NO) and the date

worked, you would do so as follows:

CREATE VIEW EMP_WORKED AS

SELECT E.EMP_LNAME, E.EMP_FNAME, H.ATTRACT_NO,H.DATE_WORKED

FROM employee E JOIN hours H

ON E.EMP_NUM = H.EMP_NUM;

To display the contents of this view you would type

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SELECT * FROM EMP_WORKED;

The created view can be seen in figure 78.

Figure 78 Creating the EMP_WORKED view.

Task 6.1 Create the EMP_WORKED view.

Relational view has several special characteristics. These are:

• You can use the name of a view anywhere a table name is expected in a SQL
statement

• Views are dynamically updated. That is, the view is re-created on demand each
time it is invoked.

• Views provide a level of security in the database because the view can restrict users
to only specified columns and specified rows in a table

To remove the view EMP_WORKED you could issue the following command
DROP VIEW EMP_WORKED;

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6.2 Views – using the WITH CHECK OPTION

It is possible to perform referential integrity constraints through the use of a view so that database
constraints can be enforced. The following view DISPLAYS employees who work in Theme Park
FR1001 using the WITH CHECK OPTION clause. This clause ensures that INSERTs and
UPDATEs cannot be performed on any rows that the view has not selected. The results of creating
this view can be seen in Figure 79.

CREATE VIEW EMPFR AS

SELECT *

FROM EMPLOYEE

WHERE PARK_CODE = ‘FR1001’

WITH CHECK OPTION;

Figure 79 Creating the EMPFR view

So for example if employee ‘Emma Caulderdale’ was to leave the park and move to park

‘UK3452’, we would want to update her information with the following query:

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 UPDATE EMPFR

SET PARK_CODE = 'UK3452'

WHERE EMP_NUM = 100;

However running this update gives the errors shown in Figure 80. This is because if the

update was to occur, the view would no longer be able to see this employee.

Figure 80 Creating the EMPFR view

Advantages of Views:
I. Simplify complex Query:
Views help simplify complex queries. If you have any frequently used complex query,
you can create a view based on it so that you can reference to the view by using a
simple SELECT statement instead of typing the query all over again.

II. Add extra security layers:

A table may expose a lot of data including sensitive data such as personal and banking
information. By using views and privileges, you can limit which data users can access by
exposing only the necessary data to them.

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SQL Functions:

There are many types of SQL functions, such as arithmetic, trigonometric, string, date, and

time functions. Lab 6 will cover a selection of these SQL functions that are implemented in

MySQL in detail. Functions always use a numerical, date, or string value. The value may be

part of the command itself (a constant or literal) or it may be an attribute located in a table.

Therefore, a function may appear anywhere in a SQL statement where a value or an

attribute can be used.

6.3 Date and Time Functions

In MySQL there are a number of useful date and time functions. However, first it is

important to briefly look at the main date and time types are available to MySQL. These are

shown in the table below:

Table 6.1 MySQL Date and Time data types

DATETIME YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

DATE YYYY-MM-DD
TIMESTAMP YYYYMMDDHHSSMM
TIME HH:MM:SS
YEAR YYYY

As you can see from Table 6.1, the DATE type is stored in a special internal format that

includes just the year, month and day whilst the DATETIME data type also stores the

hours, minutes, and seconds. If you try to enter a date in a format other than the Year-

Month-Day format then it might work, but it won't be storing them as you expect!

Task 6.1 Enter the following query and examine how the date is displayed.

SELECT DISTINCT(SALE_DATE )

FROM SALES;

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It is possible to change the format of the date using the DATE_FORMAT() function. The

syntax of this function is

DATE_FORMAT(date,format)

The function formats the date value according to the format string.

For example, the following query formats the date as 18th May 2007 using ‘ date

specifiers’ as shown in Figure 55.

SELECT DISTINCT(DATE_FORMAT(SALE_DATE, ‘%D %b %Y’))

FROM SALES;

Figure 55 Formatting Dates in MySQL

Table 6.2 taken directly from the MySQL Manual 5.0 shows a complete list of specifiers

that can be used in the format string.

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 Specifier Description
%a Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%b Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%c Month, numeric (0..12)
%D Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, …)
%d Day of the month, numeric (00..31)
%e Day of the month, numeric (0..31)
%f Microseconds (000000..999999)
%H Hour (00..23)
%h Hour (01..12)
%I Hour (01..12)
%i Minutes, numeric (00..59)
%j Day of year (001..366)
%k Hour (0..23)
%l Hour (1..12)
%M Month name (January..December)
%m Month, numeric (00..12)
%p AM or PM
%r Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM)
%S Seconds (00..59)
%s Seconds (00..59)
%T Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week
%u Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week
%V Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X

%v Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x
%W Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday)
%w Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday)
%X Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four
digits; used with %V
%x Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four
digits; used with %v
%Y Year, numeric, four digits
%y Year, numeric (two digits)
%% A literal ‘%’ character
%x x, for any ‘x’ not listed above

You will now explore some of the main MySQL date / time functions.
CURRENT DATE and CURRENT TIME

The CURRENT_DATE function returns today’s date while the CURRENT_TIME

function returns the current time.

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Task 6.3 Enter the following query to display today’s date and time. Notice that in
MySQL the functions are called using the SELECT statement but no FROM clause is
needed.

mysql> SELECT CURRENT_DATE(), CURRENT_TIME();

Note

CURRENT_TIME and CURRENT_DATE are synonyms for CURTIME()

and CURDATE respectively.

The output for this query is shown in Figure 56.

Figure 56 Displaying the current date and time.

MONTH, DAYOFMONTH and YEAR

MySQL provides functions for extracting the month, day or year from any given date.

The syntax of each function is as follows:

DAYOFMONTH(date) returns the day of the month for date, in the range 0 to 31.

MONTH(date) returns the month for date, in the range 0 to 12.

YEAR(date) returns the year for date, in the range 1000 to 9999, or 0 for the “zero” date.

The following query shows how these three functions can be used to display different

parts of an employee’s date of birth. The output of this query is shown in Figure 57.

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SELECT DAYOFMONTH(EMP_DOB) AS “Day”, MONTH(EMP_DOB) AS “Month”,

YEAR(EMP_DOB) AS “Year”

FROM EMPLOYEE;

Figure 57 Using the MONTH, DAYOFMONTH and YEAR functions.

Task 6.4 Write a query that displays all employees who were born in November. Your

output should match that shown in Figure 58.

Figure 58 Output for Task 6.4.

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DATEDIFF

The DATEDIFF function subtracts two dates and returns a value in days from one date to the

other. The following example calculates the number of days between the 1st January 2008

and the 25th December 2008.

SELECT DATEDIFF(‘2008-12-25’,‘2008-01-01’);

Task 6.5 Enter the query above and see how many days it is until the 25th December. Then

modify the query to see how many days it is from today’s date until 25th December 2009.

DATE_ADD and DATE_SUB

The DATE_ADD and DATE_SUB functions both perform date arithmetic and allow you to

either add or subtract two dates from one another. The syntax of these functions is:

DATE_ADD(date,INTERVAL expr unit)

DATE_SUB(date,INTERVAL expr unit)

Where expr is an expression specifying the interval value to be added or subtracted from the

starting date and unit is a keyword indicating the units in which the expression should be

interpreted.

For example, the following query adds 11 months to the date 1st January 2008 to display a

new date of 1st December 2008. The output for this query is shown in Figure 59.

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SELECT ADDDATE(‘2008-01-01’, INTERVAL 11 MONTH );

Figure 59 Adding months to a date

A full list of the different interval types can be found in the MySQL Reference Manual

5.0.

Task 6.6 Enter the following query which lists the hire dates of all employees along with

the date of their first work appraisal (one year from the hiredate). Check that the output is

correct.

SELECT EMP_LNAME, EMP_FNAME, EMP_HIRE_DATE,

ADDDATE(EMP_HIRE_DATE, INTERVAL 12 MONTH )AS “FIRST APPRAISAL”

FROM EMPLOYEE;

LAST_DAY

The function LAST_DAY returns the date of the last day of the month given in a date.

The syntax is

LAST_DAY(date_value).

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Task 6.7 Enter the following query which lists all sales transactions that were made in

the last 20 days of a month:

SELECT *

FROM SALES

WHERE SALE_DATE >= LAST_DAY(SALE_DATE)-20;

6.4 Numeric Functions

In this section, you will learn about MySQL single row numeric functions. Numeric

functions take one numeric parameter and return one value. A description of the functions

you will explore in this lab can be found in Table 4.

Note

Do not confuse the SQL aggregate functions you saw in the previous chapter with

the numeric functions in this section. The first group operates over a set of values

(multiple rows—hence, the name aggregate functions), while the numeric functions

covered here operate over a single row.

Table 4 Selected Numeric Functions

Function Description
ABS Returns the absolute value of a number
Syntax: ABS(numeric_value)
ROUND Rounds a value to a specified precision (number of digits)

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 Syntax: ROUND(numeric_value, p) where p = precision
TRUNCATE Truncates a value to a specified precision (number of
digits)
Syntax: TRUNC(numeric_value, p) where p = precision
MOD Returns the remainder of division.
Syntax MOD(m.n) where m is divided by n.

The following example displays the individual LINE_PRICE from the sales line table,

rounded to one and zero places and truncated where the quantity of tickets purchased on

that line is greater than 2.

SELECT LINE_PRICE, ROUND(LINE_PRICE,1) AS “LINE_PRICE1”,

ROUND(LINE_PRICE,0) AS “LINE_PRICE1”,

TRUNCATE(LINE_PRICE,0) AS “TRUNCATED VALUE”

FROM SALES_LINE

WHERE LINE_QTY > 2;

The output for this query can be seen in Figure 60.

Figure 60 Example of ROUND and TRUNC

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Task 6.8 Enter the following query and execute it. Can you explain the results of this

query?

SELECT TRANSACTION_NO, LINE_PRICE, MOD(LINE_PRICE, 10)

FROM SALES_LINE

WHERE LINE_QTY > 2;

6.5 String Functions

String manipulation functions are amongst the most-used functions in programming.

Table 5 shows a subset of the most useful string manipulation functions in MySQL.

Table 5 Selected MySQL string functions.

Function Description
CONCAT Concatenates data from two different character columns and returns a single
column.
Syntax: CONCAT(strg_value, strg_value)
UPPER/LOWER Returns a string in all capital or all lowercase letters
Syntax: UPPER(strg_value) , LOWER(strg_value)
SUBSTR Returns a substring or part of a given string parameter
Syntax:
SUBSTR(strg_value, p, l) where p = start position and l = length of
characters
LENGTH Returns the number of characters in a string value
Syntax: LENGTH(strg_value)

We will now look at examples of some of these string functions.

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CONCAT

The following query illustrates the CONCAT function. It lists all employee first and last

names concatenated together. The output for this query can be seen in Figure 61.

SELECT CONCAT(EMP_LNAME ,EMP_FNAME) AS

NAME FROM EMPLOYEE;

Figure 61 Concatenation of employee’s first and last names

UPPER/LOWER

The following query lists all employee last names in all capital letters and all first names

in all lowercase letters. The output for the query is shown in Figure 62.

SELECT CONCAT(UPPER(EMP_LNAME),LOWER(EMP_FNAME)) AS

NAME FROM EMPLOYEE;

Figure 62 Displaying upper and lower case employee names.

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 SUBSTR

The following example lists the first three characters of all the employees’ first name.

The output of this query is shown in Figure 63.

SELECT EMP_PHONE, SUBSTR(EMP_FNAME,1,3)

FROM EMPLOYEE;

Figure 63 Displaying the first 3 characters of the employees first name

LENGTH

The following example lists all attraction names and the length of their names; ordered

descended by attraction name length. The output of this query is shown in Figure 65.

SELECT ATTRACT_NAME, LENGTH(ATTRACT_NAME) AS

NAMESIZE FROM ATTRACTION

ORDER BY NAMESIZE DESC;

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 Figure 65 Displaying the length of attraction names.

6.5 Conversion Functions

Conversion functions allow you to take a value of a given data type and convert it to the

equivalent value in another data type. In MySQL, some conversions occur implicitly. For

example, MySQL automatically converts numbers to strings when needed, and vice versa.

So if you enter the following query:

SELECT 10 + ‘10’

MySQL would give you an answer of 20 as it would automatically convert the string

containing ‘10’ into the number 10 (see figure 66).

If you want to explicitly convert a number to a string then you can use either the CAST or

CONVERT function. However MySQL 5.0 recommends only the CAST function is used.

Let’s look at an example. The following query produces the output shown in Figure 66.

SELECT 10, CAST(10 AS CHAR);

Figure 66 Example of type conversions

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 Note

The MySQL Reference Manual 5.0 provides a set of rules that allow us to determine

how the coversion will occur when using the CONVERT function on different data

types.

IFNULL

The IFNULL function lets you substitute a value when a null value is encountered in the

results of a query. The syntax is:

IFNULL(expr1,expr2)

If expr1 is not NULL, IFNULL() returns expr1; otherwise it returns expr2. It is

equivalent to Oracle’s NVL function. It is useful for avoiding errors caused by incorrect

calculation when one of the arguments is null.

CASE

The CASE function compares an attribute or expression with a series of values and

returns an associated value or a default value if no match is found. There are two versions

of the CASE function. The syntax of each is shown below.

CASE value WHEN [compare_value] THEN result [WHEN [compare_value] THEN

result ...] [ELSE result] END

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CASE WHEN [condition] THEN result [WHEN [condition] THEN result ...]

[ELSE result] END

The first version returns the result where value=compare_value. The second version

returns the result for the first condition that is true. If there was no matching result

value, the result after ELSE is returned, or NULL if there is no ELSE part.

Let’s now look at the following example, which compares the country code in the

PARK_COUNTRY field and decodes it into the name of the country. If there is no

match, it returns the value ‘Unknown’. The output is shown in Figure 68.

SELECT PARK_CODE, PARK_COUNTRY, (CASE PARK_COUNTRY WHEN 'UK'

THEN 'United Kingdom' WHEN 'FR' THEN 'France' WHEN 'NL' THEN 'The

Netherlands' WHEN 'SP' THEN 'Spain' WHEN 'ZA' THEN 'South Africa' WHEN 'SW'

THEN 'Switzerland' ELSE' Unknown' END) AS COUNTRY

FROM THEMEPARK;

Figure 68 Displaying the names of countries using the DECODE function.

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It is worth noting that the above decode statement is equivalent to the following
IF-THEN-ELSE statement:

IF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘UK’ THEN

result := 'United Kingdom';
ELSIF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘FR’ THEN
result := 'FRANCE';
ELSIF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘NL’ THEN
result := 'The Netherlands';
ELSIF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘SP’ THEN
result := 'Spain';
ELSIF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘ZA’ THEN
result := 'South Africa';
ELSIF PARK_COUNTRY = ‘SW’ THEN
result := 'Switzerland';
ELSE
result := 'Unknown’;
END IF;

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Exercises

E6.1 Create the view EMPFR (as created in section 6.2) and update the Theme Park that
employee number 101 works in. (Update the employee number 101 information in the
EMPFR view).

E6.2 Employee Emma Cauderdale (EMP_NUM =100) has now changed her phone number to
324-9652. Update her information in the EMPFR view. Write a query to show her new phone
number has been updated and then Remove the EMPFR view.

E6.3 Create a view of only those Theme Parks where tickets have been sold and then display the
contents of this view. Your output should match that shown in Figure E-6.4.

Figure 1 Output for E-6.3

E6.4 The Theme Park managers want to create a view called EMP_DETAILS which

contains the following information. EMP_NO, PARK_CODE, PARK_NAME,

EMP_LNAME_EMP_FNAME, EMP_HIRE_DATE and EMP_DOB. The view should

only be read only. Check that the view works, by displaying its contents.

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 Figure 2 Output for E-6.4

E6.5 Using your view EMP_DETAILS, write a query that displays all employee first and

last names and the park names.

E6.6 Create a view called TICKET_SALES which contains details of the min, max and

average sales at each Theme Park. The name of the theme park should also be displayed.

(Hint 1: you will need to join three tables). Once you have created your view, write a query

to display the contents.

Figure 3 Output for E6.6

E6.7 Using the date specifiers in Table 7.2, modify the query shown in Figure 55 to

display the date in the format ’Fri – 18 – 5 – 07’.

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E 6.8 Write a query which generates a list of employee user IDs, using the born month,

first day of the month they were born and the first six characters of last name in UPPER

case. Your query should return the results shown in Figure 64.

USER ID format (MDName) here M= month, D= first day of month, Name= Employee

last name first 6 alphabets.

Figure 64 Results for E 6.9.

E6.9 Write a query which lists the names and dates of births of all employees born on the
14th day of the month.

E6.10 Write a query which generates a list of employee user passwords, using the first
three digits of their phone number, and the first two characters of first name in lower case.
Label the column USER_PASSWORD;

References:
https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-views-tutorial.aspx/
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/sql-function-reference.html

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