SQL

Dr. M. Brindha
Assistant Professor
Department of CSE
NIT, Trichy-15
 SQL
• Basic Structure
• Set Operations
• Aggregate Functions
• Null Values
• Nested Subqueries
• Derived Relations
• Views
• Modification of the Database
• Joined Relations
• Data Definition Language
• Embedded SQL, ODBC and JDBC
Schema Used in Examples
 Data Definition Language (DDL)
Allows the specification of not only a set of relations but
also information about each relation, including:
• The schema for each relation.
• The domain of values associated with each
attribute.
• Integrity constraints
• The set of indices to be maintained for each
relations.
• Security and authorization information for each
relation.
• The physical storage structure of each relation
on disk.
 Domain Types in SQL
• char(n). Fixed length character string, with user-specified length n.
• varchar(n).
Variable length character strings, with user-specified
maximum length n.
• int. Integer (a finite subset of the integers that is machine-dependent).
• smallint.
Small integer (a machine-dependent subset of the integer
domain type).
• numeric(p,d). Fixed point number, with user-specified precision of p
digits, with n digits to the right of decimal point.
• real,double precision. Floating point and double-precision floating
point numbers, with machine-dependent precision.
• float(n). Floating point number, with user-specified precision of at least
n digits.
• Nullvalues are allowed in all the domain types. Declaring an attribute
to be not null prohibits null values for that attribute.
• create domain construct in SQL-92 creates user-defined domain types
create domain person-name char(20) not null
Date/Time Types in SQL (Cont.)
• date. Dates, containing a (4 digit) year, month and date
• E.g. date ‘2001-7-27’
• time. Time of day, in hours, minutes and seconds.
• E.g. time ’09:00:30’ time ’09:00:30.75’
• timestamp: date plus time of day
• E.g. timestamp ‘2001-7-27 09:00:30.75’

• Interval: period of time

• E.g. Interval ‘1’ day
• Subtracting a date/time/timestamp value from another gives
an interval value
• Interval values can be added to date/time/timestamp values

• Can extract values of individual fields from date/time/timestamp

• E.g. extract (year from r.starttime)

• Can cast string types to date/time/timestamp

• E.g. cast <string-valued-expression> as date
 Create Table Construct
• An SQL relation is defined using the create table
command:
create table r (A1 D1, A2 D2, ..., An Dn,
(integrity-constraint1),
...,
(integrity-constraintk))
• r is the name of the relation
• each Ai is an attribute name in the schema of relation r
• Di is the data type of values in the domain of attribute Ai

• Example:
create table branch
(branch-name char(15) not null,
branch-citychar(30),
assets integer)
Integrity Constraints in Create Table
• not null
• primary key (A1, ..., An)
• check (P), where P is a predicate

Example: Declare branch-name as the primary key for branch

and ensure that the values of assets are non-negative.
create table branch
(branch-namechar(15),
branch-city char(30)
assets integer,
primary key (branch-name),
check (assets >= 0))
 Drop and Alter Table Constructs
• The drop table command deletes all information about
the dropped relation from the database.
• The alter table command is used to add attributes to an
existing relation.
alter table r add A D
where A is the name of the attribute to be added to
relation r and D is the domain of A.
• All tuples in the relation are assigned null as the value for the new
attribute.
• The alter table command can also be used to drop
attributes of a relation
alter table r drop A
where A is the name of an attribute of relation r
• Dropping of attributes not supported by many databases
 Basic Structure
• SQL is based on set and relational operations with
certain modifications and enhancements
• A typical SQL query has the form:
select A1, A2, ..., An
from r1, r2, ..., rm
where P
• Ais represent attributes
• ris represent relations
• P is a predicate.

• Thisquery is equivalent to the relational algebra

expression.
A1, A2, ..., An(P (r1 x r2 x ... x rm))
• The result of an SQL query is a relation.
 The select Clause
• The select clause list the attributes desired in the result of
a query
• corresponds to the projection operation of the relational algebra

• E.g. find the names of all branches in the loan relation

select branch-name
from loan
• In the “pure” relational algebra syntax, the query would
be:
branch-name(loan)
• NOTE: SQL does not permit the ‘-’ character in names,
• Use, e.g., branch_name instead of branch-name in a real
implementation.
• We use ‘-’ since it looks nicer!

• NOTE: SQL names are case insensitive, i.e. you can use
capital or small letters.
• You may wish to use upper case where-ever we use bold font.
 The select Clause (Cont.)
• SQL allows duplicates in relations as well as in query
results.
• To force the elimination of duplicates, insert the
keyword distinct after select.
• Find the names of all branches in the loan relations,
and remove duplicates
select distinct branch-name
from loan
• The keyword all specifies that duplicates not be
removed.
select all branch-name
from loan
 The select Clause (Cont.)
• An asterisk in the select clause denotes “all
attributes”
select * from loan
• The select clause can contain arithmetic expressions
involving the operation, +, –, , and /, and operating
on constants or attributes of tuples.
• The query:
select loan-number, branch-name, amount  100
from loan
would return a relation which is the same as the loan
relations, except that the attribute amount is
multiplied by 100.
 The where Clause
• The where clause specifies conditions that the result
must satisfy
• corresponds to the selection predicate of the relational
algebra.
• To find all loan number for loans made at the
Perryridge branch with loan amounts greater than
$1200.
select loan-number from loan where
branch-name = ‘Perryridge’ and amount > 1200
• Comparison results can be combined using the logical
connectives and, or, and not.
• Comparisons can be applied to results of arithmetic
expressions.
 The where Clause (Cont.)

• SQL includes a between comparison operator

• E.g.
Find the loan number of those loans with loan
amounts between $90,000 and $100,000 (that is, $90,000
and $100,000)

select loan-number
from loan
where amount between 90000 and 100000
 The from Clause
• The from clause lists the relations involved in the query
• corresponds to the Cartesian product operation of the relational algebra.

• Find the Cartesian product borrower x loan

select 
from borrower, loan

Find the name, loan number and loan amount of all

customers having a loan at the Perryridge branch.
select customer-name, borrower.loan-number, amount
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number and
branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
 The Rename Operation
• The SQL allows renaming relations and attributes using
the as clause:
old-name as new-name

• Find the name, loan number and loan amount of all

customers; rename the column name loan-number as loan-
id.
select customer-name, borrower.loan-number as loan-id,
amount from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number
 Tuple Variables
• Tuple variables are defined in the from clause via the use
of the as clause.
• Find the customer names and their loan numbers for all
customers having a loan at some branch.
select customer-name, T.loan-number, S.amount
from borrower as T, loan as S
where T.loan-number = S.loan-number

Find the names of all branches that have greater

assets than some branch located in Brooklyn.
select distinct T.branch-name
from branch as T, branch as S
where T.assets > S.assets and S.branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’
Modification of the Database – Deletion
• Delete all account records at the Perryridge branch
delete from account
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
• Delete all accounts at every branch located in Needham
city.
delete from account
where branch-name in (select branch-name
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Needham’)
 Example Query
• Delete the record of all accounts with balances below the
average at the bank.

delete from account

where balance < (select avg (balance)
from account)

Problem: as we delete tuples from deposit, the average balance

changes
Solution used in SQL:
1. First, compute avg balance and find all tuples to delete
2. Next, delete all tuples found above (without recomputing avg or
retesting the tuples)
Modification of the Database – Insertion
• Add a new tuple to account
insert into account
values (‘A-9732’, ‘Perryridge’,1200)
or equivalently

insert into account (branch-name, balance, account-

number)
values (‘Perryridge’, 1200, ‘A-9732’)
• Add a new tuple to account with balance set to null
insert into account
values (‘A-777’,‘Perryridge’, null)
Modification of the Database – Insertion
• Provide as a gift for all loan customers of the Perryridge
branch, a $200 savings account. Let the loan number serve
as the account number for the new savings account
insert into account
select loan-number, branch-name, 200
from loan
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
The select from where statement is fully evaluated before
any of its results are inserted into the relation (otherwise
queries like
insert into table1 select * from table1
would cause problems
Modification of the Database – Updates
• Increase all accounts with balances over $10,000 by
6%, all other accounts receive 5%.
• Write two update statements:
update account
set balance = balance  1.06
where balance > 10000

update account
set balance = balance  1.05
where balance  10000
• The order is important
• Can be done better using the case statement (next
slide)
Case Statement for Conditional Updates

• Same query as before: Increase all accounts with

balances over $10,000 by 6%, all other accounts
receive 5%.

update account
set balance = case
when balance <= 10000 then balance
*1.05
else balance * 1.06
end
 String Operations
• SQL includes a string-matching operator for comparisons on
character strings. Patterns are described using two special
characters:
• percent (%). The % character matches any substring.
• underscore (_). The _ character matches any character.

• Find the names of all customers whose street includes the

substring “Main”.
select customer-name
from customer
where customer-street like ‘%Main%’
• Match the name “Main%”
like ‘Main\%’ escape ‘\’
• SQL supports a variety of string operations such as
• concatenation (using “||”)
• converting from upper to lower case (and vice versa)
• finding string length, extracting substrings, etc.
 Ordering the Display of Tuples
• List in alphabetic order the names of all customers
having a loan in Perryridge branch
select distinct customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower loan-number = loan.loan-number
and
branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
order by customer-name
• We may specify desc for descending order or asc for
ascending order, for each attribute; ascending order is
the default.
• E.g. order by customer-name desc
 Set Operations
• Find all customers who have a loan, an account, or both:

(select customer-name from depositor)

union
(select customer-name from borrower)
Find all customers who have both a loan and an account.
(select customer-name from depositor)
intersect
(select customer-name from borrower)
Find all customers who have an account but no loan.

(select customer-name from depositor)

except
(select customer-name from borrower)
Aggregate Functions
• These functions operate on the multiset of values of a
column of a relation, and return a value
avg: average value
min: minimum value
max: maximum value
sum: sum of values
count: number of values
 Aggregate Functions (Cont.)
• Find the average account balance at the Perryridge
branch.
select avg (balance)
from account
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’

Find the number of tuples in the customer relation.

select count (*)
from customer

Find the number of depositors in the bank.

select count (distinct customer-name)

from depositor
 Aggregate Functions – Group By
• Find the number of depositors for each branch.

select branch-name, count (distinct customer-name)

from depositor, account
where depositor.account-number = account.account-number
group by branch-name

Note: Attributes in select clause outside of aggregate functions must

appear in group by list
Aggregate Functions – Having Clause
• Find the names of all branches where the average
account balance is more than $1,200.
select branch-name, avg (balance)
from account
group by branch-name
having avg (balance) > 1200

Note: predicates in the having clause are applied after the

formation of groups whereas predicates in the where
clause are applied before forming groups
 Null Values
• It is possible for tuples to have a null value, denoted by
null, for some of their attributes
• null signifies an unknown value or that a value does not
exist.
• The predicate is null can be used to check for null
values.
• E.g. Find all loan number which appear in the loan relation with
null values for amount.
select loan-number
from loan
where amount is null
• The result of any arithmetic expression involving null is
null
• E.g. 5 + null returns null
• However, aggregate functions simply ignore nulls
Null Values and Three Valued Logic
• Any comparison with null returns unknown
• E.g. 5 < null or null <> null or null = null

• Three-valued logic using the truth value unknown:

• OR: (unknown or true) = true, (unknown or false) = unknown
(unknown or unknown) = unknown
• AND: (true and unknown) = unknown, (false and unknown) =
false,
(unknown and unknown) = unknown
• NOT: (not unknown) = unknown
• “P is unknown” evaluates to true if predicate P evaluates to
unknown
• Result of where clause predicate is treated as false if
it evaluates to unknown
Null Values and Aggregates
• Total all loan amounts
select sum (amount)
from loan
• Above statement ignores null amounts
• result is null if there is no non-null amount
• All aggregate operations except count(*) ignore
tuples with null values on the aggregated attributes.
Nested Subqueries
• SQL provides a mechanism for the nesting of
subqueries.
• A subquery is a select-from-where expression that is
nested within another query.
• A common use of subqueries is to perform tests for
set membership, set comparisons, and set
cardinality.
 Example Query- Set Comparison
• Find all customers who have both an account and a loan
at the bank.
select distinct customer-name
from borrower
where customer-name in (select customer-name
from depositor)

Find all customers who have a loan at the bank but do not
have an account at the bank

select distinct customer-name

from borrower
where customer-name not in (select customer-name
from depositor)
 Example Query
• Find all customers who have both an account and a loan
at the Perryridge branch
select distinct customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number and
branch-name = “Perryridge” and
(branch-name, customer-name) in
(select branch-name, customer-name
from depositor, account
where depositor.account-number =
account.account-number)

Note: Above query can be written in a much simpler manner. The

formulation above is simply to illustrate SQL features.
 Set Comparison
• Find all branches that have greater assets than some
branch located in Brooklyn.
select distinct T.branch-name
from branch as T, branch as S
where T.assets > S.assets and
S.branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’

Same query using > some clause

select branch-name
from branch
where assets > some
(select assets
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’)
 Definition of Some Clause
• F <comp> some r  t  r s.t. (F <comp> t)
Where <comp> can be:    = 
0
(5< some 5 ) = true
(read: 5 < some tuple in the relation)
6

0
(5< some 5 ) = false

0
(5 = some 5 ) = true

0
(5  some 5 ) = true (since 0  5)
(= some)  in
However, ( some)  not in
 Definition of all Clause
• F <comp> all r   t  r (F <comp> t)
0
(5< all 5 ) = false
6

6
(5< all 10 ) = true

4
(5 = all 5 ) = false

4
(5  all 6 ) = true (since 5  4 and 5  6)
( all)  not in
However, (= all)  in
 Example Query
• Find the names of all branches that have greater assets
than all branches located in Brooklyn.
select branch-name
from branch
where assets > all
(select assets
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’)
Test for Empty Relations- Set Cardinality

• The exists construct returns the value true if

the argument subquery is nonempty.
• exists r  r  Ø
• not exists r  r = Ø
 Example Query
• Find all customers who have an account and a loan.

select cname
from borrower
where exists (select * from depositor
where depositor.cname =
borrower.cname)
Test for Absence of Duplicate Tuples
• The unique construct tests whether a subquery has any
duplicate tuples in its result.
• Find all customers who have at most one account at the
Perryridge branch.
select T.customer-name
from depositor as T
where unique (
select R.customer-name
from account, depositor as R
whereT.customer-name = R.customer-name and
R.account-number = account.account-number
and
account.branch-name = ‘Perryridge’)
 Example Query
• Find all customers who have at least two accounts at the
Perryridge branch.
select distinct T.customer-name
from depositor T
where not unique (
select R.customer-name
from account, depositor as R
where T.customer-name = R.customer-name
and
R.account-number = account.account-number
and
account.branch-name = ‘Perryridge’)
 Views
• Provide a mechanism to hide certain data from
the view of certain users. To create a view we
use the command:
create view v as <query expression>
where:
<query expression> is any legal expression
The view name is represented by v
 Example Queries
• A view consisting of branches and their customers

create view all-customer as

(select branch-name, customer-name
from depositor, account
where depositor.account-number = account.account-number)
union
(select branch-name, customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number)

Find all customers of the Perryridge branch

select customer-name
from all-customer
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
 Example Queries
• To specify attribute names explicitly

create view branch-total-loan (branch-name, total-loan) as

select branch-name, sum(amount)
from loan
group by branch-name

• To retrieve data view name is used

Find all customers of the Perryridge branch

select customer-name
from all-customer
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
 Update of a View
• Create a view of all loan data in loan relation, hiding the
amount attribute
create view branch-loan as
select branch-name, loan-number
from loan
• Add a new tuple to branch-loan
insert into branch-loan
values (‘Perryridge’, ‘L-307’)
This insertion must be represented by the insertion of the
tuple
(‘L-307’, ‘Perryridge’, null) into the loan relation
• Updates on more complex views are difficult or impossible to
translate, and hence are disallowed.
• Most SQL implementations allow updates only on simple
views (without aggregates) defined on a single relation
 Derived Relations
• Findthe average account balance of those branches
where the average account balance is greater than
$1200.
select branch-name, avg-balance
from (select branch-name, avg (balance)
from account
group by branch-name)
as branch-avg (branch-name, avg-balance)
where avg-balance > 1200
Note that we do not need to use the having clause,
since we compute the temporary (view) relation
result in the from clause, and the attributes of result
can be used directly in the where clause.
 With Clause
• With clause allows views to be defined locally to a
query, rather than globally. Analogous to procedures
in a programming language.
• Find all accounts with the maximum balance

with max-balance(value) as
select max (balance)
from account
select account-number
from account, max-balance
where account.balance = max-balance.value
 Complex Query using With Clause
• Find all branches where the total account deposit is
greater than the average of the total account deposits at
all branches.
with branch-total (branch-name, value) as
select branch-name, sum (balance)
from account
group by branch-name
with branch-total-avg(value) as
select avg (value)
from branch-total
select branch-name
from branch-total, branch-total-avg
where branch-total.value >= branch-total-avg.value
 Transactions
• A transaction is a sequence of queries and update statements
executed as a single unit
• Transactions are started implicitly and terminated by one of
• commit work: makes all updates of the transaction
permanent in the database
• rollback work: undoes all updates performed by the
transaction.
• Motivating example
• Transfer of money from one account to another involves two
steps:
• deduct from one account and credit to another
• If one steps succeeds and the other fails, database is in an
inconsistent state
• Therefore, either both steps should succeed or neither should

• If any step of a transaction fails, all work done by the

transaction can be undone by rollback work.
• Rollback of incomplete transactions is done automatically, in
case of system failures
 Transactions (Cont.)
• Inmost database systems, each SQL statement that
executes successfully is automatically committed.
• Each transaction would then consist of only a single
statement
• Automatic commit can usually be turned off,
allowing multi-statement transactions, but how to
do so depends on the database system
• Another option in SQL:1999: enclose statements
within
begin atomic …
end
• Commit work : Commits the current transaction
• Roll back: Undoes all the updates performed by the
SQL statements in the transaction
 Joined Relations
• Join operations take two relations and return as a result
another relation.
• These additional operations are typically used as
subquery expressions in the from clause
• Join condition – defines which tuples in the two relations
match, and what attributes are present in the result of
the join.
• Join type – defines how tuples in each relation that do
not match any tuple in the other relation (based on the
join condition) are treated.
Join Types Join Conditions
inner join natural
left outer join on <predicate>
right outer join using (A1, A2, ..., An)
full outer join
Joined Relations – Datasets for Examples
• Relation loan
loan-number branch-name amount
L-170 Downtown 3000
L-230 Redwood 4000
L-260 Perryridge 1700

Relation borrower

customer-name loan-number

Jones L-170
Smith L-230
Hayes L-155
Note: borrower information missing for L-260 and loan information
missing for L-155
 Joined Relations – Examples
• loan inner join borrower on
loan.loan-number = borrower.loan-number
loan-number branch-name amount customer-name loan-number

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones L-170

L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith L-230

loan left outer join borrower on

loan.loan-number = borrower.loan-number

loan-number branch-name amount customer-name loan-number

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones L-170
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith L-230
L-260 Perryridge 1700 null null
Joined Relations – Examples
• loan natural inner join borrower

loan-number branch-name amount customer-name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones

L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith

loan natural right outer join borrower

loan-number branch-name amount customer-name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith
L-155 null null Hayes
Joined Relations – Examples
• loan full outer join borrower using (loan-number)

loan-number branch-name amount customer-name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones

L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith
L-260 Perryridge 1700 null
L-155 null null Hayes

Find all customers who have either an account or a loan (but

not both) at the bank.

select customer-name
from (depositor natural full outer join borrower)
where account-number is null or loan-number is null
 Embedded SQL
• The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety
of programming languages such as Pascal, PL/I, Fortran,
C, and Cobol.
• 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/I.
• EXEC SQL statement is used to identify embedded SQL
request to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded SQL statement > END-EXEC
Note: this varies by language.
E.g. the Java embedding uses
# SQL { …. } ;
 Example Query
From within a host language, find the names and cities of
customers with more than the variable amount dollars in
some account.
• Specify the query in SQL and declare a cursor for it
• cursors where we write a SELECT query to retrieve
multiple rows.
EXEC SQL
declare c cursor for
select customer-name, customer-city
from depositor, customer, account
where depositor.customer-name = customer.customer-
name and depositor account-number = account.account-
number and account.balance > :amount
END-EXEC
 Embedded SQL (Cont.)
• The open statement causes the query to be evaluated
EXEC SQL open c END-EXEC
• 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 :cn, :cc END-EXEC
Repeated calls to fetch get successive tuples in the query
result
• 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 END-EXEC
Note: above details vary with language.
 Updates Through Cursors
Can update tuples fetched by cursor by declaring that the cursor
is for update
declare c cursor for
select *
from account
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’
for update
To update tuple at the current location of cursor
update account
set balance = balance + 100
where current of c
SQL Data Definition for Part of the Bank Database
 Referential Integrity in SQL
• Primary and candidate keys and foreign keys can be specified
as part of the SQL create table statement:
• The primary key clause lists attributes that comprise the
primary key.
• The unique key clause lists attributes that comprise a
candidate key.
• The foreign key clause lists the attributes that comprise the
foreign key and the name of the relation referenced by the
foreign key.
 Referential Integrity in SQL
• By default, a foreign key references the primary key
attributes of the referenced table
foreign key (account-number) references account
• Short form for specifying a single column as foreign key
account-number char (10) references account
• Reference columns in the referenced table can be explicitly
specified
• but must be declared as primary/candidate keys
foreign key (account-number) references account(account-
number)
Primary key in SQL – Example
create table customer
(customer-name char(20),
customer-street char(30),
customer-city char(30),
primary key (customer-name))
create table branch
(branch-name char(15),
branch-city char(30),
assets integer,
primary key (branch-name))
Unique key in SQL – Example
Unique key allows NULL

CREATE TABLE Persons (

ID int NOT NULL UNIQUE,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Age int
);
Referential Integrity in SQL – Example (Cont.)

create table account

(account-number char(10),
branch-name char(15),
balance integer,
primary key (account-number),
foreign key (branch-name) references branch)
create table depositor
(customer-name char(20),
account-number char(10),
primary key (customer-name, account-number),
foreign key (account-number) references
account,
foreign key (customer-name) references
customer)
 Self Referential Integrity in SQL – Example (Cont.)

• Thereferential integrity constraint ensures that every value in

the mgr column of the emp table corresponds to a value that
currently exists in the empno column of the same table, but not
necessarily in the same row, because every manager must also
be an employee. This integrity constraint eliminates the
possibility of erroneous employee numbers in the mgr column.
 Cascading Actions in SQL
create table account
...
foreign key(branch-name) references branch
on delete cascade
on update cascade
...)
• Due to the on delete cascade clauses, if a delete of a
tuple in branch results in referential-integrity
constraint violation, the delete “cascades” to the
account relation, deleting the tuple that refers to the
branch that was deleted.
• Cascading updates are similar.
 Cascading Actions in SQL (Cont.)
• If
there is a chain of foreign-key dependencies across
multiple relations, with on delete cascade specified for
each dependency, a deletion or update at one end of the
chain can propagate across the entire chain.
• Ifa cascading update to delete causes a constraint
violation that cannot be handled by a further cascading
operation, the system aborts the transaction.
• As a result, all the changes caused by the transaction and its
cascading actions are undone.
 Cascading Actions in SQL (Cont.)
• Referential integrity may be checked at the end of a
transaction
• Intermediate steps are allowed to violate referential integrity
provided later steps remove the violation
• Otherwise it would be impossible to create some database states,
e.g. insert two tuples whose foreign keys point to each other
• E.g. spouse attribute of relation
• marriedperson (name, address, spouse)

• Constraint may be immediate or deferred

 Referential Integrity in SQL (Cont.)
• Alternative to cascading:
• ON DELETE SET NULL When referenced data in the
parent key is deleted, all rows in the child table that
depend on those parent key values have their foreign
keys set to null.
• DELETE SET DEFAULT Specifies that each column of the
foreign key in each dependent row is set to its default
value.
• DELETE NO ACTION No action is taken in the child table

• Null values in foreign key attributes complicate SQL

referential integrity semantics, and are best prevented
using not null
• if any attribute of a foreign key is null, the tuple is also
defined to satisfy the foreign key constraint!
Thank You!!!