Lab 3

• Alter Table
• Rename Table
• Data Control Language
• Primary Key
• Composite Key
• Constraints

Prepared By: Dr.Osama Al-Haj Hassan 1

 Alter Table
• Sometimes you create a table and you remember
you need to change its definition because of
– Mistake
– Change in design

• To do that, you use command “alter table”.

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 Alter Table
• Things that can be done using alter table:
– Adding a column or multiple columns.

– Modifying an existing column or multiple columns.

– Renaming an existing column or multiple columns.

– Deleting a column or multiple columns.

– Renaming a table.

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 Adding a column or multiple
columns
• Adding one column:
– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
add $column_name $column-definition;

• Adding multiple columns:

– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
add ($column_name1 $column1-definition,
$column_name2 $column2-definition
);

• You can add as many columns as you want.

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 Examples
• This is a table to work with.

• create table employee

(
emp_id number,
emp_name varchar2(30)
);

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 Examples
• alter table employee
add salary number;

• alter table employee

add ( address varchar2(30),
gender number,
birth_date date
);

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 Modify an existing column or
multiple columns
• Modifying one column:
– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
modify $column_name $description;

• Modifying multiple columns:

– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
modify($column_name1 $column1-definition,
$column_name2 $column2-definition
);

• You can modify as many columns as you want.

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 Examples
• alter table employee
modify emp_name varchar2(40);

• alter table employee

modify( gender varchar2(1),
emp_name varchar2(45)
);

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 Deleting a column or multiple
columns
• Deleting one column:
– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
drop column $column_name;

• Deleting multiple columns:

– Syntax:
• alter table $table_name
drop ($column_name1,
$column_name2
);

• You can delete as many columns as you want

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 Examples
• alter table employee
drop column gender;

• alter table employee

drop (address, salary);

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 Renaming an existing column
• Renaming an existing column is performed by:
– First: Deleting the existing column.

– Second: Adding it again with the new name.

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 Example
• In this example, I want to rename the “salary” column to
“emp_salary”

– alter table employee

drop column salary;

– alter table employee

add emp_salary number;

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 Renaming a table
• Syntax:
– alter table $table_name
rename to $new_table_name;

• Example:
– alter table employee
rename to company_employee;

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 Data Control Language
(DCL)
• It is used to:
– Control actions on DB objects.

– Example: grant and revoke privileges.

– Creating keys is also considered part of DCL.

– Creating constraints is also considered part of DCL.

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 Primary Key
• It is a key attribute(s) in an entity.

• It uniquely identifies an entity.

• It is called primary because one entity can have multiple

candidate keys.
– One of them is called “Primary Key”
– The others are called “Alternative Keys” or “Secondary Keys”

• A primary key value are not allowed to be null.

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 Defining a primary key
1) Using create table statement (Definition 1)
• Syntax:
– Create table $table_name
(
$attribute1 $data_type primary key,
$attribute2 $data_type
);
– Here attribute1 is the primary key of the table.
– Example:
create table employee
(
emp_id number primary key,
emp_name varchar2(30)
); 16
 Defining a primary key
2) Using create table statement (Definition 2)
– Syntax:
– Create table $table_name
(
$attribute1 $data_type,
$attribute2 $data_type,
primary key($attribute1)
);
– Example:
create table employee
(
emp_id number,
emp_name varchar2(30),
primary key (emp_id)
); 17
 Defining a primary key
3) By adding a constraint on create table (Definition 3)
– Syntax:
– Create table $table_name
(
$attribute1 $data_type,
$attribute2 $data_type,
constraint $const_name primary key($attribute1);
);
– Example:
create table employee
(
emp_id number,
emp_name varchar2(30),
constraint pk_const primary key (emp_id)
); 18
 Composite Keys
• Sometimes primary keys might consist of more than one
attribute.

• For example, in the case of “sections” table, the primary key

of the table cannot be a single attribute. The key in this case is
a combination of:
– sec_id, crs_id, semester, year

• That is why it is called composite key.

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 Defining Composite Key
• You can use either definition 2 or 3 which you saw in the
previous slides.
• Example:
– create table sections
(
sec_id number,
crs_id number,
semester number,
year number,
primary key(sec_id,crs_id,semester,year)
);
• How many keys table “sections” have? Only “1” key that is
composed of 4 attributes. 20
 Defining Composite Key
• You can use either definition 2 or 3 which you saw in the
previous slides.

• Example:
– create table sections
(
sec_id number,
crs_id number,
semester number,
year number,
constraint c1 primary key(sec_id,crs_id,semester,year)
);
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 Note
• Look at the table description after you defined a primary key.

• Use the command desc $table_name

• Example: desc sections;

• You can see that a primary key attribute has “Not Null”
written beside it.

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 Defining a primary key
• What if we forgot to define a primary key at the time of using
“create table”?

• In this case, we can use “alter table” to define a primary key.

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 Defining a primary key
4) By adding a constraint using alter table command:
• Syntax:
– alter table $table_name
add constraint $const_name primary key($attribute1, $attribute2);

– You can have as many attributes as you want.

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 Example
• create table employee
(
emp_id number,
emp_name varchar2(30)
);

• alter table employee

add constraint c2 primary key (emp_id);

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