Chapter 4: Intermediate SQL

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Chapter 4: Intermediate SQL

■ Join Expressions
■ Views
■ Transactions
■ Integrity Constraints
■ SQL Data Types and Schemas
■ Authorization

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Joined Relations

■ Join operations take two relations and return as a result

another relation.
■ A join operation is a Cartesian product which requires that
tuples in the two relations match (under some condition).
It also specifies the attributes that are present in the result
of the join
■ The join operations are typically used as subquery
expressions in the from clause

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Join operations – Example
■ Relation course

■ Relation prereq

■ Observe that
prereq information is missing for CS-315 and
course information is missing for CS-437
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Outer Join

■ An extension of the join operation that avoids loss of

information.
■ Computes the join and then adds tuples form one relation
that does not match tuples in the other relation to the result
of the join.
■ Uses null values.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Left Outer Join

■ course natural left outer join prereq

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Right Outer Join

■ course natural right outer join prereq

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Full Outer Join

■ course natural full outer join prereq

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Joined Relations – Examples

■ course inner join prereq on

course.course_id = prereq.course_id

■ What is the difference between the above, and a natural join?

■ course left outer join prereq on
course.course_id = prereq.course_id

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Joined Relations – Examples
■ course natural right outer join prereq

null

■ course full outer join prereq using (course_id)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Views
■ In some cases, it is not desirable for all users to see the entire
logical model (that is, all the actual relations stored in the
database.)
■ Consider a person who needs to know an instructor’s name
and department, but not the salary. This person should see a
relation described, in SQL, by

select ID, name, dept_name

from instructor

■ A view provides a mechanism to hide certain data from the

view of certain users.
■ Any relation that is not part of the conceptual model but is
made visible to a user as a “virtual relation” is called a view.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 View Definition
■ A view is defined using the create view statement which has
the form
create view v as < query expression >

where <query expression> is any legal SQL expression. The

view name is represented by v.
■ Once a view is defined, the view name can be used to refer to
the virtual relation that the view generates.
■ View definition is not the same as creating a new relation by
evaluating the query expression
● Rather, a view definition causes the saving of an expression;
the expression is substituted into queries using the view.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Views
■ A view of instructors without their salary
create view faculty as
select ID, name, dept_name
from instructor
■ Find all instructors in the Biology department
select name
from faculty
where dept_name = ‘Biology’
■ Create a view of department salary totals
create view departments_total_salary(dept_name, total_salary) as
select dept_name, sum (salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name;

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Views Defined Using Other Views
■ One view may be used in the expression defining another view
■ A view relation v1 is said to depend directly on a view relation
v2 if v2 is used in the expression defining v1
■ A view relation v1 is said to depend on view relation v2 if either
v1 depends directly on v2 or there is a path of dependencies
from v1 to v2
■ A view relation v is said to be recursive if it depends on itself.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Views Defined Using Other Views
■ create view physics_fall_2009 as
select course.course_id, sec_id, building, room_number
from course, section
where course.course_id = section.course_id
and course.dept_name = ’Physics’
and section.semester = ’Fall’
and section.year = ’2009’;
■ create view physics_fall_2009_watson as
select course_id, room_number
from physics_fall_2009
where building= ’Watson’;

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 View Expansion
■ A way to define the meaning of views defined in terms of other
views.
■ Let view v1 be defined by an expression e1 that may itself
contain uses of view relations.
■ View expansion of an expression repeats the following
replacement step:
repeat
Find any view relation vi in e1
Replace the view relation vi by the expression defining vi
until no more view relations are present in e1
■ As long as the view definitions are not recursive, this loop will
terminate

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 View Expansion
■ Expand use of a view in a query/another view

create view physics_fall_2009_watson as

(select course_id, room_number
from (select course.course_id, building, room_number
from course, section
where course.course_id = section.course_id
and course.dept_name = ’Physics’
and section.semester = ’Fall’
and section.year = ’2009’)
where building= ’Watson’;

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Materialized Views
■ Materializing a view: create a physical table containing all the tuples
in the result of the query defining the view
■ If relations used in the query are updated, the materialized view result
becomes out of date
● Need to maintain the view, by updating the view whenever the
underlying relations are updated.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Update of a View
■ Add a new tuple to faculty view which we defined earlier
insert into faculty values (’30765’, ’Green’, ’Music’);
This insertion must be represented by the insertion of the tuple
(’30765’, ’Green’, ’Music’, null)
into the instructor relation

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Some Updates cannot be Translated Uniquely
■ create view instructor_info as
select ID, name, building
from instructor, department
where instructor.dept_name= department.dept_name;
■ insert into instructor_info values (’69987’, ’White’, ’Taylor’);
4 which department, if multiple departments in Taylor?
4 what if no department is in Taylor?
■ Most SQL implementations allow updates only on simple views
● The from clause has only one database relation.
● The select clause contains only attribute names of the
relation, and does not have any expressions, aggregates, or
distinct specification.
● Any attribute not listed in the select clause can be set to null
● The query does not have a group by or having clause.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 And Some Not at All
■ create view history_instructors as
select *
from instructor
where dept_name= ’History’;
■ What happens if we insert (’25566’, ’Brown’, ’Biology’, 100000)
into history_instructors?

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Transactions
■ Unit of work
■ Atomic transaction
● either fully executed or rolled back as if it never occurred
■ Isolation from concurrent transactions
■ Transactions begin implicitly when an SQL statement is executed
● Ended by commit work or rollback work
■ But default on most databases: each SQL statement commits
automatically
● Can turn off auto commit for a session (e.g. using API)
● In SQL:1999, can use: begin atomic …. end
4 Not supported on most databases

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Integrity Constraints

■ Integrity constraints guard against accidental damage to the

database, by ensuring that authorized changes to the
database do not result in a loss of data consistency.
● A checking account must have a balance greater than
$10,000.00
● A salary of a bank employee must be at least $4.00 an
hour
● A customer must have a (non-null) phone number

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Integrity Constraints on a Single Relation

■ not null
■ primary key
■ unique
■ check (P), where P is a predicate

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Not Null and Unique Constraints

■ not null
● Declare name and budget to be not null
name varchar(20) not null
budget numeric(12,2) not null
■ unique ( A1, A2, …, Am)
● The unique specification states that the attributes A1, A2, …
Am form a superkey.
● Attributes declared as unique are permitted to be null (in
contrast to primary keys).

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The check clause

■ check (P)
where P is a predicate

Example: ensure that semester is one of fall, winter, spring

or summer:

create table section (

course_id varchar (8),
sec_id varchar (8),
semester varchar (6),
year numeric (4,0),
building varchar (15),
room_number varchar (7),
time slot id varchar (4),
primary key (course_id, sec_id, semester, year),
check (semester in (’Fall’, ’Winter’, ’Spring’, ’Summer’))
);
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Referential Integrity

■ Ensures that a value that appears in one relation for a given

set of attributes also appears for a certain set of attributes in
another relation.
● Example: If “Biology” is a department name appearing in
one of the tuples in the instructor relation, then there exists
a tuple in the department relation for “Biology”.
■ Let A be a set of attributes. Let R and S be two relations that
contain attributes A and where A is the primary key of S. A is
said to be a foreign key of R if for any values of A appearing
in R these values also appear in S.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Cascading Actions in Referential Integrity

■ create table course (

course_id char(5) primary key,
title varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20) references department
)
■ create table course (
…
dept_name varchar(20),
foreign key (dept_name) references department
on delete cascade
on update cascade,
...
)
■ alternative actions to cascade: set null, set default

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Integrity Constraint Violation During
Transactions
■ E.g.
create table person (
ID char(10),
name char(40),
mother char(10),
father char(10),
primary key ID,
foreign key father references person,
foreign key mother references person)
■ How to insert a tuple without causing constraint violation ?
● insert father and mother of a person before inserting person
● OR, set father and mother to null initially, update after
inserting all persons (not possible if father and mother
attributes declared to be not null)
● OR defer constraint checking

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Complex Check Clauses
■ check (time_slot_id in (select time_slot_id from time_slot))
■ Every section has at least one instructor teaching the section.
● how to write this?
■ Unfortunately: subquery in check clause not supported by
pretty much any database
● Alternative: triggers (later)
■ create assertion <assertion-name> check <predicate>;
● Also not supported by anyone

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Built-in Data Types in SQL
■ date: Dates, containing a (4 digit) year, month and date
● Example: date ‘2005-7-27’
■ time: Time of day, in hours, minutes and seconds.
● Example: time ‘09:00:30’ time ‘09:00:30.75’
■ timestamp: date plus time of day
● Example: timestamp ‘2005-7-27 09:00:30.75’
■ interval: period of time
● Example: 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

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Index Creation
■ create table student
(ID varchar (5),
name varchar (20) not null,
dept_name varchar (20),
tot_cred numeric (3,0) default 0,
primary key (ID))
■ create index studentID_index on student(ID)
■ Indices are data structures used to speed up access to records
with specified values for index attributes
● e.g. select *
from student
where ID = ‘12345’
can be executed by using the index to find the required
record, without looking at all records of student
More on indices in Chapter 11

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 User-Defined Types

■ create type construct in SQL creates user-defined type

create type Dollars as numeric (12,2) final

● create table department

(dept_name varchar (20),
building varchar (15),
budget Dollars);

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Domains
■ create domain construct in SQL-92 creates user-defined
domain types

create domain person_name char(20) not null

■ Types and domains are similar. Domains can have constraints,

such as not null, specified on them.
■ create domain degree_level varchar(10)
constraint degree_level_test
check (value in (’Bachelors’, ’Masters’, ’Doctorate’));

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Large-Object Types
■ Large objects (photos, videos, CAD files, etc.) are stored as a
large object:
● blob: binary large object -- object is a large collection of
uninterpreted binary data (whose interpretation is left to an
application outside of the database system)
● clob: character large object -- object is a large collection of
character data
● When a query returns a large object, a pointer is returned
rather than the large object itself.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Authorization

Forms of authorization on parts of the database:

■ Read - allows reading, but not modification of data.

■ Insert - allows insertion of new data, but not modification of existing

data.
■ Update - allows modification, but not deletion of data.
■ Delete - allows deletion of data.

Forms of authorization to modify the database schema

■ Index - allows creation and deletion of indices.
■ Resources - allows creation of new relations.
■ Alteration - allows addition or deletion of attributes in a relation.
■ Drop - allows deletion of relations.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Authorization Specification in SQL

■ The grant statement is used to confer authorization

grant <privilege list>
on <relation name or view name> to <user list>
■ <user list> is:
● a user-id
● public, which allows all valid users the privilege granted
● A role (more on this later)
■ Granting a privilege on a view does not imply granting any
privileges on the underlying relations.
■ The grantor of the privilege must already hold the privilege on
the specified item (or be the database administrator).

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Privileges in SQL

■ select: allows read access to relation,or the ability to query

using the view
● Example: grant users U1, U2, and U3 select
authorization on the instructor relation:
grant select on instructor to U1, U2, U3
■ insert: the ability to insert tuples
■ update: the ability to update using the SQL update
statement
■ delete: the ability to delete tuples.
■ all privileges: used as a short form for all the allowable
privileges

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Revoking Authorization in SQL

■ The revoke statement is used to revoke authorization.

revoke <privilege list>
on <relation name or view name> from <user list>
■ Example:
revoke select on branch from U1, U2, U3
■ <privilege-list> may be all to revoke all privileges the revokee
may hold.
■ If <revokee-list> includes public, all users lose the privilege
except those granted it explicitly.
■ If the same privilege was granted twice to the same user by
different grantees, the user may retain the privilege after the
revocation.
■ All privileges that depend on the privilege being revoked are
also revoked.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Roles
■ create role instructor;
■ grant instructor to Amit;
■ Privileges can be granted to roles:
● grant select on takes to instructor;
■ Roles can be granted to users, as well as to other roles
● create role teaching_assistant
● grant teaching_assistant to instructor;
4 Instructor inherits all privileges of teaching_assistant
■ Chain of roles
● create role dean;
● grant instructor to dean;
● grant dean to Satoshi;

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Authorization on Views
■ create view geo_instructor as
(select *
from instructor
where dept_name = ’Geology’);
■ grant select on geo_instructor to geo_staff
■ Suppose that a geo_staff member issues
● select *
from geo_instructor;
■ What if
● geo_staff does not have permissions on instructor?
● creator of view did not have some permissions on
instructor?

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Other Authorization Features
■ references privilege to create foreign key
● grant reference (dept_name) on department to Mariano;
● why is this required?
■ transfer of privileges
● grant select on department to Amit with grant option;
● revoke select on department from Amit, Satoshi cascade;
● revoke select on department from Amit, Satoshi restrict;
■ Etc. read Section 4.6 for more details we have omitted here.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter 4

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Figure 4.01

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.02

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.03

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.04

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.05

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.07

Taylor

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.06

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Figure 4.03

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 4.52 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan