SQL Commands – A Beginner’s Guide To SQL

Last updated on Mar 29,2022223.4K Views

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Sahiti Kappagantula

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In the era where data is being generated in humongous amounts, there is a constant need to handle
data in databases. Relational databases are one of the most popular databases, and SQL is the basis of
relational databases. Therefore SQL skills are indispensable in most of the job roles. In this article on SQL
Commands, I will discuss the top commands and statements that you need to understand in SQL.

The topics covered in this blog are mainly divided into 4 categories:

 Data Definition Language(DDL) – Consists of commands which are used to define the database.

 Data Manipulation Language(DML) –  Consists of commands which are used to manipulate the

 Data Control Language(DCL) – Consists of commands which deal with the user permissions and
controls of the database system.

 Transaction Control Language(TCL) – Consist of commands which deal with the transaction of
the database.

Apart from the above commands, the following topics will also be covered in this article:
  Comments in SQL

 Different Types Of Keys In Database

 Constraints Used In Database

 Nested Queries

 Joins

 Set Operations

 Dates & Auto Increment

 Views

 Stored Procedures

 Triggers

In this article on SQL Commands, I am going to consider the below database as an example, to show you
how to write commands.

Emergency
EmployeeID EmployeeName PhoneNumber Address City Country
ContactName

Oberoi
01 Shanaya Abhinay 9898765612  Mumbai India
Street 23

Marathalli
02 Anay Soumya 9432156783 House No Delhi India
23

Queens
03 Preeti Rohan 9764234519 Bangalore India
Road 45

Brigade
04 Vihaan Akriti 9966442211 Road Block Hyderabad India
4

Mayo Road
05 Manasa Shourya 9543176246 Kolkata India
23

So, let’s get started now!

Comments in SQL

There are two ways in which you can comment in SQL, i.e. either the Single-Line Comments or the Multi-
Line Comments.

Single-Line Comments
The single line comment starts with two hyphens (–). So, any text mentioned after (–), till the end of a
single line will be ignored by the compiler.

Example:

1 --Select all:

2 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info;

Multi-Line Comments 

The Multi-line comments start with /* and end with */. So, any text mentioned between /* and */ will
be ignored by the compiler.

Example:

1 /*Select all the columns

2 of all the records

3 from the Employee_Info table:*/

4 SELECT * FROM Students;

SQL Commands: Data Definition Language Commands (DDL)

This section of the article will give you an insight into the commands through which you can define your
database. The commands are as follows:

 CREATE

 DROP

 TRUNCATE

 ALTER

 BACKUP DATABASE

CREATE

This statement is used to create a table or a database.

The ‘CREATE DATABASE’ Statement

As the name suggests, this statement is used to create a database.

Syntax

CREATE DATABASE DatabaseName;

Example

1 CREATE DATABASE Employee;

This statement is used to create a table.

Syntax

CREATE TABLE TableName (

Column1 datatype,

Column2 datatype,

Column3 datatype,

....

ColumnN datatype

);

Example

1 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

2 (

3 EmployeeID int,

4 EmployeeName varchar(255),

5 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

6 PhoneNumber int,

7 Address varchar(255),

8 City varchar(255),

9 Country varchar(255)

10 );

You can also create a table using another table. Refer the below sytax and example:

The ‘CREATE TABLE AS’ Statement

Syntax

CREATE TABLE NewTableName AS

SELECT Column1, column2,..., ColumnN

FROM ExistingTableName
WHERE ....;

Example

1 CREATE TABLE ExampleTable AS

2 SELECT EmployeeName, PhoneNumber

3 FROM Employee_Info;

DROP

This statement is used to drop an existing table or a database.

The ‘DROP DATABASE’ Statement

This statement is used to drop an existing database. When you use this statement, complete
information present in the database will be lost.

Syntax

DROP DATABASE DatabaseName;

Example

1 DROP DATABASE Employee;

The ‘DROP TABLE’ Statement

This statement is used to drop an existing table. When you use this statement, complete information
present in the table will be lost.

Syntax

DROP TABLE TableName;

Example

1 DROP Table Employee_Info;

TRUNCATE

This command is used to delete the information present in the table but does not delete the table. So,
once you use this command, your information will be lost, but not the table.

Syntax

TRUNCATE TABLE TableName;

Example

1 TRUNCATE Table Employee_Info;

ALTER

This command is used to delete, modify or add constraints or columns in an existing table.
The ‘ALTER TABLE’ Statement

This statement is used to add, delete, modify columns in an existing table.

The ‘ALTER TABLE’ Statement with ADD/DROP COLUMN

You can use the ALTER TABLE statement with ADD/DROP Column command according to your need. If
you wish to add a column, then you will use the ADD command, and if you wish to delete a column, then
you will use the DROP COLUMN command.

Syntax

ALTER TABLE TableName

ADD ColumnName Datatype;

ALTER TABLE TableName

DROP COLUMN ColumnName;

Example

1 --ADD Column BloodGroup:

2  

3 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

4 ADD BloodGroup varchar(255);

5  

6 --DROP Column BloodGroup:

7  

8 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

9 DROP COLUMN BloodGroup ;

The ‘ALTER TABLE’ Statement with ALTER/MODIFY COLUMN

This statement is used to change the datatype of an existing column in a table.

Syntax

ALTER TABLE TableName

ALTER COLUMN ColumnName Datatype;

Example

1 --Add a column DOB and change the data type to Date.

3 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

4 ADD DOB year;

5  

6 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

7 ALTER DOB date;

BACKUP DATABASE

This statement is used to create a full backup of an existing database.

Syntax

BACKUP DATABASE DatabaseName

TO DISK = 'filepath';

Example

1 BACKUP DATABASE Employee

2 TO DISK = 'C:UsersSahitiDesktop';

You can also use a differential back up. This type of back up only backs up the parts of the database,
which have changed since the last complete backup of the database.

Syntax

BACKUP DATABASE DatabaseName

TO DISK = 'filepath'

WITH DIFFERENTIAL;

Example

1 BACKUP DATABASE Employee

2 TO DISK = 'C:UsersSahitiDesktop'

3 WITH DIFFERENTIAL;

Now that you know the data definition commands, let me take you through the various types of Keys
and Constraints that you need to understand before learning how to manipulate the databases.

SQL Commands: Different Types Of Keys In Database

There are mainly 7 types of Keys, that can be considered in a database. I am going to consider the below
tables to explain to you the various keys.
 Candidate Key – A set of attributes which can uniquely identify a table can be termed as a
Candidate Key. A table can have more than one candidate key, and out of the chosen candidate
keys, one key can be chosen as a Primary Key. In the above example, since EmployeeID,
InsuranceNumber and PanNumber can uniquely identify every tuple, they would be considered
as a Candidate Key. 

 Super Key – The set of attributes which can uniquely identify a tuple is known as Super Key. So,
a candidate key, primary key, and a unique key is a superkey, but vice-versa isn’t true.

 Primary Key – A set of attributes which are used to uniquely identify every tuple is also a
primary key. In the above example, since EmployeeID, InsuranceNumber and PanNumber are
candidate keys, any one of them can be chosen as a Primary Key. Here EmployeeID is chosen as
the primary key.

 Alternate Key – Alternate Keys are the candidate keys, which are not chosen as a Primary key.
From the above example, the alternate keys are PanNumber and Insurance Number.

 Unique Key –  The unique key is similar to the primary key, but allows one NULL value in the
column. Here the Insurance Number and the Pan Number can be considered as unique keys.

 Foreign Key – An attribute that can only take the values present as the values of some other
attribute, is the foreign key to the attribute to which it refers. in the above example, the
 Employee_ID from the Employee_Information Table is referred to the Employee_ID from the
Employee_Salary Table.

 Composite Key – A composite key is a combination of two or more columns that identify each
tuple uniquely. Here, the Employee_ID and Month-Year_Of_Salary can be grouped together to
uniquely identify every tuple in the table.

SQL Commands: Constraints Used In Database

Constraints are used in a database to specify the rules for data in a table. The following are the different
types of constraints:

 NOT NULL

 UNIQUE

 CHECK

 DEFAULT

 INDEX

NOT NULL

This constraint ensures that a column cannot have a NULL value.

Example

1 --NOT NULL on Create Table

2  

3 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

4 (

5 EmployeeID int NOT NULL,

6 EmployeeName varchar(255) NOT NULL,

7 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

8 PhoneNumber int NOT NULL,

9 Address varchar(255),

10 City varchar(255),

11 Country varchar(255)

12 );

13  

14 --NOT NULL on ALTER TABLE

16 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

17 MODIFY PhoneNumber int NOT NULL;

UNIQUE

This constraint ensures that all the values in a column are unique.

Example

1 --UNIQUE on Create Table

2  

3 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

4 (

5 EmployeeID int NOT NULL UNIQUE,

6 EmployeeName varchar(255) NOT NULL,

7 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

8 PhoneNumber int NOT NULL,

9 Address varchar(255),

10 City varchar(255),

11 Country varchar(255)

12 );

13  

14 --UNIQUE on Multiple Columns

15  

16 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

17 (

18 EmployeeID int NOT NULL,

19 EmployeeName varchar(255) NOT NULL,

20 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

21 PhoneNumber int NOT NULL,

22 Address varchar(255),
23 City varchar(255),

24 Country varchar(255),

25 CONSTRAINT UC_Employee_Info UNIQUE(Employee_ID, PhoneNumber)

26 );

27  

28 --UNIQUE on ALTER TABLE

29  

30 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

31 ADD UNIQUE (Employee_ID);

32  

33 --To drop a UNIQUE constraint

34  

35 ALTER TABLE  Employee_Info

36 DROP CONSTRAINT UC_Employee_Info;

CHECK

This constraint ensures that all the values in a column satisfy a specific condition.

Example

1 --CHECK Constraint on CREATE TABLE

2  

3 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

4 (

5 EmployeeID int NOT NULL,

6 EmployeeName varchar(255),

7 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

8 PhoneNumber int,

9 Address varchar(255),

10 City varchar(255),

11 Country varchar(255) CHECK (Country=='India')

13  

14 --CHECK Constraint on multiple columns

15  

16 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

17 (

18 EmployeeID int NOT NULL,

19 EmployeeName varchar(255),

20 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

21 PhoneNumber int,

22 Address varchar(255),

23 City varchar(255),

24 Country varchar(255) CHECK (Country = 'India' AND Cite = 'Hyderabad')

25 );

26  

27 --CHECK Constraint on ALTER TABLE

28  

29 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

30 ADD CHECK (Country=='India');

31  

32 --To give a name to the CHECK Constraint

33  

34 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

35 ADD CONSTRAINT CheckConstraintName CHECK (Country=='India');

36  

37 --To drop a CHECK Constraint

38  

39 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

DEFAULT

This constraint consists of a set of default values for a column when no value is specified.

Example

1 --DEFAULT Constraint on CREATE TABLE

2  

3 CREATE TABLE Employee_Info

4 (

5 EmployeeID int NOT NULL,

6 EmployeeName varchar(255),

7 Emergency ContactName varchar(255),

8 PhoneNumber int,

9 Address varchar(255),

10 City varchar(255),

11 Country varchar(255) DEFAULT 'India'

12 );

13  

14 --DEFAULT Constraint on ALTER TABLE

15  

16 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

17 ADD CONSTRAINT defau_Country

18 DEFAULT 'India' FOR Country;

19  

20 --To drop the Default Constraint

21  

22 ALTER TABLE Employee_Info

23 ALTER COLUMN Country DROP DEFAULT;

INDEX
This constraint is used to create indexes in the table, through which you can create and retrieve data
from the database very quickly.

Syntax

--Create an Index where duplicate values are allowed

CREATE INDEX IndexName

ON TableName (Column1, Column2, ...ColumnN);

--Create an Index where duplicate values are not allowed

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX IndexName

ON TableName (Column1, Column2, ...ColumnN);

Example

1 CREATE INDEX idex_EmployeeName

2 ON Persons (EmployeeName);

3  

4 --To delete an index in a table

5  

6 DROP INDEX Employee_Info.idex_EmployeeName;

Now, let us look into the next part of this article i.e. DML Commands.

SQL Commands: Data Manipulation Language Commands (DML)

This section of the article will give you an insight into the commands through which you can manipulate
the database. The commands are as follows:

MySQL DBA Certification Training

Explore Curriculum
 

 USE

 INSERT INTO

 UPDATE

 DELETE

 SELECT

Apart from these commands, there are also other manipulative operators/functions such as:

 Operators 

 Aggregate Functions

 NULL Functions

 Aliases & Case Statement

USE

The USE statement is used to select the database on which you want to perform operations.

Syntax

USE DatabaseName;

Example

1 USE Employee;

INSERT INTO

This statement is used to insert new records into the table.

Syntax

INSERT INTO TableName (Column1, Column2, Column3, ...,ColumnN)

VALUES (value1, value2, value3, ...);

--If you don't want to mention the column names then use the below syntax

INSERT INTO TableName

VALUES (Value1, Value2, Value3, ...);

1 INSERT INTO Employee_Info(EmployeeID, EmployeeName, Emergency ContactName, PhoneNumber, Address, City,

2 VALUES ('06', 'Sanjana','Jagannath', '9921321141', 'Camel Street House No 12', 'Chennai', 'India');

3  

4 INSERT INTO Employee_Info

5 VALUES ('07', 'Sayantini','Praveen', '9934567654', 'Nice Road 21', 'Pune', 'India');

UPDATE

This statement is used to modify the records already present in the table.

Syntax

UPDATE TableName

SET Column1 = Value1, Column2 = Value2, ...

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 UPDATE Employee_Info

2 SET EmployeeName = 'Aahana', City= 'Ahmedabad'

3 WHERE EmployeeID = 1;

DELETE

This statement is used to delete the existing records in a table.

Syntax

DELETE FROM TableName WHERE Condition;

Example

1 DELETE FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE EmployeeName='Preeti';

SELECT

This statement is used to select data from a database and the data returned is stored in a result table,
called the result-set.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2, ...ColumN

FROM TableName;
--(*) is used to select all from the table

SELECT * FROM table_name;

-- To select the number of records to return use:

SELECT TOP 3 * FROM TableName;

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeID, EmployeeName

2 FROM Employee_Info;

3  

4 --(*) is used to select all from the table

5 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info;

6  

7 -- To select the number of records to return use:

8 SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Employee_Info;

Apart from just using the SELECT keyword individually, you can use the following keywords with the
SELECT statement:

 DISTINCT

 ORDER BY

 GROUP BY

 HAVING Clause

 INTO

The ‘SELECT DISTINCT’ Statement

This statement is used to return only different values.

Syntax

SELECT DISTINCT Column1, Column2, ...ColumnN

FROM TableName;

Example
1 SELECT DISTINCT PhoneNumber FROM Employee_Info;

The ‘ORDER BY’ Statement

The ‘ORDER BY’ statement is used to sort the required results in ascending or descending order. The
results are sorted in ascending order by default. Yet, if you wish to get the required results in descending
order, you have to use the DESC keyword.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2, ...ColumnN

FROM TableName

ORDER BY Column1, Column2, ... ASC|DESC;

Example

1 -- Select all employees from the 'Employee_Info' table sorted by EmergencyContactName:

2 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

3 ORDER BY EmergencyContactName;

4  

5 -- Select all employees from the 'Employee_Info' table sorted by EmergencyContactName in Descending order:

6 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

7 ORDER BY EmergencyContactName DESC;

8  

9 -- Select all employees from the 'Employee_Info' table sorted by EmergencyContactName and EmployeeName:

10 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

11 ORDER BY EmergencyContactName, EmployeeName;

12  

13 /* Select all employees from the 'Employee_Info' table sorted by EmergencyContactName in Descending order an

14 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

15 ORDER BY EmergencyContactName ASC, EmployeeName DESC;

The ‘GROUP BY’ Statement

This ‘GROUP BY’ statement is used with the aggregate functions to group the result-set by one or more
columns.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2,..., ColumnN

WHERE Condition

GROUP BY ColumnName(s)

ORDER BY ColumnName(s);

Example

1 -- To list the number of employees from each city.

2  

3 SELECT COUNT(EmployeeID), City

4 FROM Employee_Info

5 GROUP BY City;

The ‘HAVING’ Clause

The ‘HAVING’ clause is used in SQL because the WHERE keyword cannot be used everywhere.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition

GROUP BY ColumnName(s)

HAVING Condition

ORDER BY ColumnName(s);

Example

1 /*  To list the number of employees in each city. The employees should be sorted high to low and only

2  

3 SELECT COUNT(EmployeeID), City

4 FROM Employee_Info

5 GROUP BY City

6 HAVING COUNT(EmployeeID) > 2

7 ORDER BY COUNT(EmployeeID) DESC;

The ‘SELECT INTO’ Statement

The ‘SELECT INTO’ statement is used to copy data from one table to another.
Syntax

SELECT *

INTO NewTable [IN ExternalDB]

FROM OldTable

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 -- To create a backup of database 'Employee'

2 SELECT * INTO EmployeeBackup

3 FROM Employee;

4  

5 --To select only few columns from Employee

6 SELECT EmployeeName, PhoneNumber INTO EmployeeContactDetails

7 FROM Employee;

8  

9 SELECT * INTO BlrEmployee

10 FROM Employee

11 WHERE City = 'Bangalore';

Now, as I mentioned before, let us move onto our next section in this article on SQL Commands, i.e. the
Operators.

Operators in SQL

The different set of operators available in SQL are as follows:

Arithmetic Operators

Operator Description

% Modulous [A % B]

/ Division [A / B]

* Multiplication [A * B]

– Subtraction  [A – B]

+ Addition [A + B]

Bitwise Operators

Operator Description

^ Bitwise Exclusive OR (XOR) [A ^ B]

| Bitwise OR [A | B]

& Bitwise AND [A & B]

Comparison Operators

Operator Description

<> Not Equal to [A < > B]

>= Greater than or equal to [A >= B]

< Less than [A < B]

> Greater than [A > B]

= Equal to [A = B]

Compound Operators

Operator Description

|*= Bitwise OR equals [A |*= B]

^-= Bitwise Exclusive equals [A ^-= B]

&= Bitwise AND equals [A &= B]

%= Modulo equals [A %= B]

/= Divide equals [A /= B]

*= Multiply equals [A*= B]

-= Subtract equals [A-= B]

+= Add equals [A+= B]

Logical Operators

The Logical operators present in SQL are as follows:

 AND

 OR

 NOT

 BETWEEN

 LIKE

 IN

 EXISTS

 ALL

 ANY

AND Operator
This operator is used to filter records that rely on more than one condition. This operator displays the
records, which satisfy all the conditions separated by AND, and give the output TRUE.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2, ..., ColumnN

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition1 AND Condition2 AND Condition3 ...;

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE City='Mumbai' AND City='Hyderabad';</pre>

OR Operator

This operator displays all those records which satisfy any of the conditions separated by OR and give the
output TRUE.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2, ..., ColumnN

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition1 OR Condition2 OR Condition3 ...;

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE City='Mumbai' OR City='Hyderabad';

NOT Operator

The NOT operator is used, when you want to display the records which do not satisfy a condition.

Syntax

SELECT Column1, Column2, ..., ColumnN

FROM TableName

WHERE NOT Condition;

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE NOT City='Mumbai';

NOTE: You can also combine the above three operators and write a query as follows:
1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE NOT Country='India' AND (City='Bangalore' OR City='Hyderabad');

NOTE: You can also combine the above three operators and write a query as follows:

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE NOT Country='India' AND (City='Bangalore' OR City='Hyderabad');

BETWEEN Operator

The BETWEEN operator is used, when you want to select values within a given range. Since this is an
inclusive operator, both the starting and ending values are considered.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE ColumnName BETWEEN Value1 AND Value2;

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Salary

2 WHERE Salary BETWEEN 40000 AND 50000;

LIKE Operator

The LIKE operator is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a column of a table.
There are mainly two wildcards that are used in conjunction with the LIKE operator:

 % – It matches 0 or more character.

 _ – It matches exactly one character.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE ColumnName LIKE pattern;

Refer to the following table for the various patterns that you can mention with the LIKE operator.

Like Operator Condition Description

WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘v% Finds any values that start with “v”

WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘%v’ Finds any values that end with “v”

WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘%and%’ Finds any values that have “and” in any position
WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘_q%’ Finds any values that have “q” in the second position.

Finds any values that start with “u” and are at least 3
WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘u_%_%’
characters in length

WHERE ContactName LIKE ‘m%a’ Finds any values that start with “m” and end with “a”

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE EmployeeName LIKE 'S%';

IN Operator

This operator is used for multiple OR conditions. This allows you to specify multiple values in a WHERE
clause.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE ColumnName IN (Value1,Value2...);

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Employee_Info

2 WHERE City IN ('Mumbai', 'Bangalore', 'Hyderabad');

NOTE: You can also use IN while writing Nested Queries.

EXISTS Operator

The EXISTS operator is used to test if a record exists or not.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE EXISTS

(SELECT ColumnName FROM TableName WHERE condition);

Example

1 SELECT EmergencyContactName

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 WHERE EXISTS (SELECT EmergencyContactName FROM Employee_Info WHERE EmployeeId = 05 AND City = 'Kolkata
ALL Operator

The ALL operator is used with a WHERE or HAVING clause and returns TRUE if all of the subquery values
meet the condition.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE ColumnName operator ALL

(SELECT ColumnName FROM TableName WHERE condition);

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeName

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 WHERE EmployeeID = ALL (SELECT EmployeeID FROM Employee_Info WHERE City = 'Hyderabad');

ANY Operator

Similar to the ALL operator, the ANY operator is also used with a WHERE or HAVING clause and returns
true if any of the subquery values meet the condition.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName

WHERE ColumnName operator ANY

(SELECT ColumnName FROM TableName WHERE condition);

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeName

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 WHERE EmployeeID = ANY (SELECT EmployeeID FROM Employee_Info WHERE City = 'Hyderabad' OR City = 'Kolkata'

Next, in this article on SQL Commands, let us look into the various Aggregate Functions provided in SQL.

Aggregate Functions

This section of the article will include the following functions:

 MIN()
  MAX()

 COUNT()

 SUM()

 AVG()

MIN() Function

The MIN function returns the smallest value of the selected column in a table.

Syntax

SELECT MIN(ColumnName)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 SELECT MIN(EmployeeID) AS SmallestID

2 FROM Employee_Info;

MAX() Function

The MAX function returns the largest value of the selected column in a table.

Syntax

SELECT MAX(ColumnName)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 SELECT MAX(Salary) AS LargestFees

2 FROM Employee_Salary;

COUNT() Function

The COUNT function returns the number of rows which match the specified criteria.

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Next

Syntax

SELECT COUNT(ColumnName)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 SELECT COUNT(EmployeeID)

2 FROM Employee_Info;

SUM() Function

The SUM function returns the total sum of a numeric column that you choose.

Syntax

SELECT SUM(ColumnName)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 SELECT SUM(Salary)

2 FROM Employee_Salary;

AVG() Function

The AVG function returns the average value of a numeric column that you choose.

Syntax

SELECT AVG(ColumnName)

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 SELECT AVG(Salary)
2 FROM Employee_Salary;

NULL Functions

The NULL functions are those functions which let you return an alternative value if an expression is
NULL. In the SQL Server, the function is ISNULL().

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeID * (Month_Year_of_Salary + ISNULL(Salary, 0))

2 FROM Employee_Salary;

Aliases & Case Statement

In this section of this article on SQL Commands, you will go through the Aliases and Case statement one
after the other.

Aliases

Aliases are used to give a column/table a temporary name and only exists for a duration of the query.

Syntax

--Alias Column Syntax

SELECT ColumnName AS AliasName

FROM TableName;

--Alias Table Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM TableName AS AliasName;

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeID AS ID, EmployeeName AS EmpName

2 FROM Employee_Info;

3  

4 SELECT EmployeeName AS EmpName, EmergencyContactName AS [Contact Name]

5 FROM Employee_Info;

Case Statement
This statement goes through all the conditions and returns a value when the first condition is met. So, if
no conditions are TRUE, it returns the value in the ELSE clause. Also, if no conditions are true and there
is no ELSE part, then it returns NULL.

Syntax

CASE

WHEN Condition1 THEN Result1

WHEN Condition2 THEN Result2

WHEN ConditionN THEN ResultN

ELSE Result

END;

Example

1 SELECT EmployeeName, City

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 ORDER BY

4 (CASE

5     WHEN City IS NULL THEN 'Country is India by default'

6     ELSE City

7 END);

Now, that I have told you a lot about DML commands in this article on SQL Commands, let me just tell
you in short about Nested Queries, Joins, Set Operations, and Dates & Auto Increment.

SQL Commands: Nested Queries

Nested queries are those queries which have an outer query and inner subquery. So, basically, the
subquery is a query which is nested within another query such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE.
Refer to the image below:
SQL Commands: Joins

JOINS are used to combine rows from two or more tables, based on a related column between those
tables. The following are the types of joins: 

 INNER JOIN: This join returns those records which have matching values in both the tables.

 FULL JOIN: This join returns all those records which either have a match in the left or the right
table.

 LEFT JOIN: This join returns records from the left table, and also those records which satisfy the
condition from the right table.

 RIGHT JOIN: This join returns records from the right table, and also those records which satisfy
the condition from the left table.

Refer to the image below.

TechID EmpID TechName ProjectStartDate

1 10 DevOps 04-01-2019

2 11 Blockchain 06-07-2019

3 12 Python 01-03-2019

INNER JOIN

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM Table1

INNER JOIN Table2 ON Table1.ColumnName = Table2.ColumnName;

Example

1 SELECT Technologies.TechID, Employee_Info.EmployeeName

2 FROM Technologies

3 INNER JOIN Employee_Info ON Technologies.EmpID = Employee_Info.EmpID;

FULL JOIN

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM Table1
FULL OUTER JOIN Table2 ON Table1.ColumnName = Table2.ColumnName;

Example

1 SELECT Employee_Info.EmployeeName, Technologies.TechID

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 FULL OUTER JOIN Orders ON Employee_Info.EmpID=Employee_Salary.EmpID

4 ORDER BY Employee_Info.EmployeeName;

LEFT JOIN

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM Table1

LEFT JOIN Table2 ON Table1.ColumnName = Table2.ColumnName;

Example

1 SELECT Employee_Info.EmployeeName, Technologies.TechID

2 FROM Employee_Info

3 LEFT JOIN Technologies ON Employee_Info.EmployeeID = Technologies.EmpIDID

4 ORDER BY Employee_Info.EmployeeName;

RIGHT JOIN

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s)

FROM Table1

RIGHT JOIN Table2 ON Table1.ColumnName = Table2.ColumnName;

Example

1 SELECT Technologies.TechID

2 FROM Technologies

3 RIGHT JOIN Employee_Info ON Technologies.EmpID = Employee_Info.EmployeeID

4 ORDER BY Technologies.TechID;

SQL Commands: Set Operations

There are mainly three set operations:UNION, INTERSECT, EXCEPT. You can refer to the image below to
understand the set operations in SQL.
UNION

This operator is used to combine the result-set of two or more SELECT statements.

Syntax

SELECT ColumnName(s) FROM Table1

UNION

SELECT ColumnName(s) FROM Table2;

INTERSECT

This clause used to combine two SELECT statements and return the intersection of the data-sets of both
the SELECT statements.

Syntax

SELECT Column1 , Column2 ....

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition

INTERSECT

SELECT Column1 , Column2 ....

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition

EXCEPT

This operator returns those tuples that are returned by the first SELECT operation, and are not returned
by the second SELECT operation.

Syntax
SELECT ColumnName

FROM TableName

EXCEPT

SELECT ColumnName

FROM TableName;

Next, in this article, let us look into the date functions and auto-increment fields.

SQL Commands: Dates & Auto Increment

In this section of this article, I will explain to you how to use the Date functions and also the Auto-
Increment fields.

Dates

The following data types are present in a SQL Server to store a date or a date/time value in a database.

 Data Type  Format

DATE YYYY-MM-DD

DATETIME YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS

SMALLDATETIME YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS

TIMESTAMP A Unique Number

Example

1 SELECT * FROM Technologies WHERE ProjectStartDate='2019-04-01'

Auto Increment

This field generates a unique number automatically when a new record is inserted into a table. The MS
SQL Server uses the IDENTITY keyword for this feature.

Example

1 <span>/* To define the "EmployeeID" column to be an auto-increment primary key field in the "Employee_Info" tab

2  

3 <span>CREATE TABLE Employee_Info (</span>

4 <span>EmployeeID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,</span>

5 <span>EmployeeName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL</span>

7 <span>);</span>

Now, that you guys know the DML commands, let’s move onto our next section in this article on SQL
Commands i.e. the DCL commands.

SQL Commands: Data Control Language Commands (DCL)

This section of the article will give you an insight into the commands which are used to enforce database
security in multiple user database environments. The commands are as follows:

 GRANT

 REVOKE

GRANT

This command is used to provide access or privileges on the database and its objects to the users.

Syntax

GRANT PrivilegeName

ON ObjectName

TO {UserName |PUBLIC |RoleName}

[WITH GRANT OPTION];

where,

 PrivilegeName – Is the privilege/right/access granted to the user.

 ObjectName – Name of a database object like TABLE/VIEW/STORED PROC.

 UserName – Name of the user who is given the access/rights/privileges.

 PUBLIC – To grant access rights to all users.

 RoleName – The name of a set of privileges grouped together.

 WITH GRANT OPTION – To give the user access to grant other users with rights.

Example

1 -- To grant SELECT permission to Employee_Info table to user1

2 GRANT SELECT ON Employee_Info TO user1;

REVOKE

This command is used to withdraw the user’s access privileges given by using the GRANT command.
Syntax

REVOKE PrivilegeName 

ON ObjectName 

FROM {UserName |PUBLIC |RoleName}

Example

1 -- To revoke the granted permission from user1

2 REVOKE SELECT ON Employee_Info TO user1;

Now, next in this article on SQL Commands, I will discuss Views, Stored Procedures, and Triggers.

SQL Commands: Views

A view in SQL is a single table, which is derived from other tables. So, a view contains rows and columns
similar to a real table and has fields from one or more table.

The ‘CREATE VIEW’ statement

This statement is used to create a view, from a table.

Syntax

CREATE VIEW ViewName AS

SELECT Column1, Column2, ..., ColumnN

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 CREATE VIEW [Kolkata Employees] AS

3 FROM Employee_Info

4 WHERE City = "Kolkata";

The ‘CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW’ statement

This statement is used to update a view.

Syntax

CREATE VIEW OR REPLACE ViewName AS

SELECT Column1, Column2, ..., ColumnN

FROM TableName

WHERE Condition;

Example

1 CREATE VIEW OR REPLACE [Kolkata Employees] AS

2 SELECT EmployeeName, PhoneNumber

3 FROM Employee_Info

4 WHERE City = "Kolkata";

The ‘DROP VIEW’ statement

This statement is used to delete a view.

Syntax

DROP VIEW ViewName;

Example

1 DROP VIEW [Kolkata Employees];

SQL Commands: Stored Procedures

A code which you can save and reuse it again is known as StoredProcedures.

Syntax

CREATE PROCEDURE ProcedureName

AS

SQLStatement

GO;

Example
1 EXEC ProcedureName;

SQL Commands: Triggers

Triggers are a set of  SQL statements which are stored in the database catalog. These statements are
executed whenever an event associated with a table occurs. So, a trigger can be invoked
either BEFORE or AFTER the data is changed by INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE statement. Refer to the
image below.

Syntax

CREATE TRIGGER [TriggerName]

[BEFORE | AFTER]

{INSERT | UPDATE | DELETE}

on [TableName]

[FOR EACH ROW]

[TriggerBody]

Now, let’s move on to the last section of this article on SQL Commands i.e. the Transaction Control
Language Commands.

MySQL DBA Certification Training

SQL Commands: Transaction Control Language Commands (TCL)

This section of the article will give you an insight into the commands which are used to manage
transactions in the database. The commands are as follows:

 COMMIT

 ROLLBACK

 SAVEPOINT

COMMIT

This command is used to save the transaction into the database.

Syntax

COMMIT;

ROLLBACK

This command is used to restore the database to the last committed state. 

Syntax

ROLLBACK;

NOTE: When you use ROLLBACK with SAVEPOINT, then you can directly jump to a savepoint in an
ongoing transaction. Syntax: ROLLBACK TO SavepointName;

SAVEPOINT

This command is used to temporarily save a transaction.  So if you wish to rollback to any point, then
you can save that point as a ‘SAVEPOINT’.

Syntax

SAVEPOINT SAVEPOINTNAME;

Consider the below example to understand the working of transactions in the database.

EmployeeID EmployeeName

 01 Ruhaan

02 Suhana

03 Aayush
04 Rashi

Now, use the below SQL queries to understand the transactions in the database.

1 INSERT INTO Employee_Table VALUES(05, 'Avinash');

2 COMMIT;

3 UPDATE Employee_Table SET name = 'Akash' WHERE id = '05';

4 SAVEPOINT S1;

5 INSERT INTO Employee_Table VALUES(06, 'Sanjana');

6 SAVEPOINT S2;

7 INSERT INTO Employee_Table VALUES(07, 'Sanjay');

8 SAVEPOINT S3;

9 INSERT INTO Employee_Table VALUES(08, 'Veena');

10 SAVEPOINT S4;

11 SELECT * FROM Employee_Table;

The output to the above set of queries would be as follows:

EmployeeID EmployeeName

 01 Ruhaan

02 Suhana

03 Aayush

04 Rashi

05 Akash

06 Sanjana

07 Sanjay

08 Veena

Now, if you rollback to S2 using the below queries, the output is mentioned in the below table.

1 ROLLBACK TO S2;

2 SELECT * FROM Employee_Table;

EmployeeID EmployeeName

 01 Ruhaan
02 Suhana

03 Aayush

04 Rashi

05 Akash

06 Sanjana

By this, I come to the end of this article on SQL Commands. I hope you enjoyed reading this article on
SQL Commands. We have seen the different commands that will help you write queries and play around
with your databases.  If you wish to learn more about  MySQL  and get to know  this open source
relational database, then check out our  MySQL DBA Certification Training  which  comes with instructor-
led live training and real-life project experience.  This training will help you understand MySQL in depth
and help you achieve mastery over the subject.

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section of ”SQL Commands” and I will get back
to you.