Introduction to

Standard Query Language

Erik Zeitler
UDBL
erik.zeitler@it.uu.se
 Why a query language?
Given some data,
how should users
and computer programs
communicate with it?

we need an interface to the data

 SQL does the job
• Data Definition Language (DDL)
• Define/re-define database structure
• Data Manipulation Language (DML)
• Updates
• Queries
• Additional facilities
• Views
• Security, authorization
• Integrity constraints
• Transaction constraints
• Rules for embedding SQL statements into other
languages
 Outline
• Overview
• What can SQL do for you?
• Background
• and a simple example
• SQL and the relational data model
• Example queries
• NULL values and 3-valued logic
• Example queries
 Background
• History
• SEQUEL (Structures English QUery Language) – early 70’s,
IBM Research
• SQL (ANSI 1986), SQL1 or SQL86
• SQL2 or SQL92
• SQL3 or SQL99
• Core specification and optional specialized packages

• SQL consists of ~20 basic commands

• A lot of research money for each SQL command…

• Standard language for all commercial DBMS

• Each DBMS has features outside standard
 Terminology
Theoretical foundation: relation

The relational data

model Attribute1 Attribute2 Attribute2

• relation – table column1 … columnn

• tuple – row
<row 2>
• attribute – column
…
<row n>
 Example database

Schema diagram, datbase state (E/N ch 5, p 136-137)

(c) Addison Wesley Longman Inc
CREATE TABLE employee (
fname varchar(100),
minit char(1),
lname varchar(100),
ssn int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
bdate date,
address varchar(100),
sex char(1),
salary int(10),
superssn int(10),
dno int(10),
PRIMARY KEY (ssn)
) ;
unix$ mysql –u root –p
> CREATE DATABASE comp;
> CONNECT comp;
> CREATE TABLE emp (
fname varchar(100),
lname varchar(100),
ssn bigint unsigned NOT NULL
PRIMARY KEY (ssn)
);

> INSERT INTO emp VALUES(

’Erik’, ’Zeitler’, 197510061111
);

> SELECT * FROM emp;

> SELECT fname FROM emp; #
 Recommendation
• www.mysql.com
• www.mimer.com

• Download & install on your PC

• Excellent reference manuals on the web
sites
Basic query statement: select – from – where

SELECT A1, A2, …, An

FROM r1, r2, …, rm
WHERE P;
• A1, A2, …, An – list of attribute names to be retrieved
• r1, r2, …, rm – List of tables required to process the query
• P – Conditional expression identifying the tuples to be
retrieved
• AND, OR, NOT, <, <=, =, >=, >
• Result of the query is a table
 SQL and the relational data model

• Projection • Assignment operator

• Cartesian product • Rename relations
• Selection • Join
• Set operations  join
• Union • Equijoin
• Difference • Natural join
• Intersection
 Relation algebra projection
• Projection is done in the SELECT clause:
The star (*) denotes
”all attributes”

Ex 1, Look at interesting fields

> select * from employee;
> select fname from employee;
> select fname, bdate from employee;

Ex 2, projection!
> select x,y,z from vectors;
> select x,y from vectors;
 The SQL SELECT clause
• Projection

• Remove duplicates: distinct

> select plocation from project;
> select distinct plocation from project;

• Arithmetic expressions
> select x/10, (y*z)/2, z+3 from vectors;
> select ssn, salary, salary*.327 from employee; #
 Relational algebra selection
SELECT A1, A2, …, An
FROM r1, r2, …, rm
WHERE P;
• P is the selection predicate
• operates on attributes in relations r1, r2, …, rm
• Selects tuples to be returned
• selection  filtering

Selection in SQL: The WHERE clause  

 The SQL WHERE clause
• Ex 1, Look for employee info
> select * from employee
where fname=’John’;

• Ex 2, Look for employee info

> select * from employee
where bdate > ’1955-01-01’
and salary between 30000 and 50000;

• Ex 3, vector length!
> select x,y,z from vectors
where x > 10 and x*x+y*y+z*z < 200;
 Rel. algebra Cartesian product
Similar to Cartesian product of two vectors

 v1 w1 v1 wn 
 
 v1 v2  vn    w1 w2  wn      
v w vn wn 
 n 1
The Cartesian product forms
all possible pairs
of the elements
of the operands
 The SQL FROM clause
Similarly, given two select *
from persons, cars;
database tables
Alex Audi
John Audi
persons cars
Mike Audi
Alex Audi Alex BMW
John
x BMW
=
John BMW
Mike Mercedes Mike BMW
Alex Mercedes
, this SQL query generates John Mercedes
all possible persons-cars Mike Mercedes
combinations.
More… #
 Select … from … where
revisited

Basic SQL query: three clauses

select <projection-predicate>
from <table list>
where <selection-predicate>
Relational algebra
• Cartesian product
• Selection
• Projection
 Select – from – where
Ex 1: Find all employees working at research dept

SELECT EMPLOYEE.LNAME, ADDRESS

FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DEPARTMENT.NAME=‘Research’
AND DNUMBER=DNO;

Ex 2: All employees and their managers

SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME, S.LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE E, EMPLOYEE S
WHERE E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN;
 SQL and the relational data model

SELECT … FROM … WHERE … • Assignment operator

 • Rename relations
projection,
• Join
cartesian product,
selection
 join
• Set operations • Equijoin
• Union • Natural join
• Difference
• Intersection
Operands must be union
compatible
 Examples of set operations
• Retrieve all first names in the database
> select fname from employee
union
select dependent_name from dependent;

• Are there any projects in a town without

departments?
> select plocation FROM project p
except
select dlocation FROM dept_locations;

#
 SQL and the relational data model
SELECT … FROM … WHERE … • Assignment operator
 • Rename relations
projection,
• Join
cartesian product,
selection
 join
• Equijoin
• Set operations • Natural join
• Union – union
• Difference – except
• Intersection – intersect
 Rename, assignment
• Rename: as
> select distinct superssn
as ’manager social security number’
from employee;

• Assignment: create table … as select …

> create table names as
select fname from employee
union
select dependent_name from dependent;
 SQL and the relational data model
SELECT … FROM … WHERE … • Assignment operator
 • Rename relations
projection,
• Join
cartesian product,
selection
 join
• Equijoin
• Set operations • Natural join
• Union – union
• Difference – except
• Intersection – intersect
 Join
• Relational algebra notation: R C S
• C – join condition
• C is on the form AR  AS
 is one of {=, <, >, ≤, ≥, }
• Several terms can be connected as C1 C2…CK.
• Special cases
• Equijoin:  is =
• Natural join: All identically named attributes in relations
R and S have matching values
 SQL join
• Recall this query
SELECT EMPLOYEE.LNAME, ADDRESS
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE DEPARTMENT.NAME=‘Research’
AND DNUMBER=DNO;

• Equijoin
• of employee and department tables
• w.r.t. employee.dnumber and department.dno.

• Joins are cartesian products

with some selection criteria
 SQL join
• Another way:
• alter table project change pnumber pno int(10);
 One more example
• Show the resulting salaries if every
employee working on the ‘ProductX’
project is given a 10 percent raise

SELECT FNAME, LNAME,

1.1*SALARY AS INC_SAL
FROM EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, PROJECT
WHERE SSN=ESSN
AND PNO=PNUMBER
AND PNAME=‘ProductX’;
 Special comparison
• Matching string patterns
• Use LIKE
• % for any number of arbitrary symbol
• _ for any symbol
select * from employee
where address like ’%Houston%’;
• Approx math equality
• Use abs(x-x1) < 
select * from employee
where abs(salary-30000) < 8000;
• Use BETWEEN:
select * from employee
where salary between 22000 and 38000;
 NULL values
• Sometimes an attribute is
• Unknown (date of birth unknown)
• Unavailable/withheld (refuses to list home phone #)
• Not applicaple (last college degree)

• Need to represent these cases in a DB!

• Solution: NULL.
• What about logical operations involving NULL?
 Need to extend logic…
 3-valued logic
AND TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN
TRUE TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN
FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
UNKNOWN UNKNOWN FALSE UNKNOWN

OR TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN

TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE
FALSE TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN TRUE UNKNOWN UNKNOWN

NOT TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN

FALSE TRUE UNKNOWN
 Comparison of NULL values
• =, , >, <, LIKE, …
• won’t work. NULL is UNDEFINED!
• SQL check for NULL
• IS NULL
• IS NOT NULL

• JOIN operations
• Tuples with NULL values in the join columns
 Not included in result
• Exception: OUTER JOIN (E/N 8.5.6)
 NULL
• Find out who is The Big Boss
select fname, lname
from employee
where superssn is NULL;
 Aggregate functions
• Avg – average value
• Min – minimum value
• Max – maximum value
• Sum – sum of values
• Count – number of values
 Aggregate functions – group by
• Average salary
select avg(salary)
from employee;

• Average salary at each department

select dname, avg(salary)
from employee, department
where dno=dnumber group by dno;
 Aggregate functions – HAVING
• Find the projects that more than two employees are
assigned to:
• retrieve the project number,
• its name,
• and the number of its employees

SELECT project.pnumber, pname , count(*)

FROM project, works_on
WHERE project.pnumber = works_on.pno
GROUP BY project.pnumber, pname
HAVING count(*)>2;
 Summary
• Clauses:
SELECT <attribute list>
FROM <table list>
[WHERE <condition>]
[GROUP BY <grouping attributes>
[HAVING <group condition>]
[ORDER BY <attribute list>]

• More Than One Way To Do It™…

 Views
• Frequently posed queries should be
expressed as views.

> create view tax_view as

select ssn, salary, salary*.327
from employee;

> select * from tax_view;

 Views
• Creating a view will not result in a new table. Views
are not tables themselves
– they are views of the underlying tables.

• A view query will return the state of the underlying

tables.

• Consequence:
underlying tables are changed

the view will change
 Views
• Ex 1:
> update table employee
set salary = 1000000
where ssn = 123456;

> select * from tax_view;

• Ex 2:
We are removing one column!
> alter table employee drop salary;

The view will not work any more

> select * from tax_view;