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Windows Function

Updating data in a database involves modifying existing data values. The UPDATE command is used to update individual rows, all rows in a table, or a subset of rows. The UPDATE command requires specifying the table and column to update, the new value, and a condition to identify which rows to update when not directly specifying a row identifier. For example, the command "UPDATE products SET price = 10 WHERE price = 5" would update the price column to 10 for any rows where the original price was 5.

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10 views

Windows Function

Updating data in a database involves modifying existing data values. The UPDATE command is used to update individual rows, all rows in a table, or a subset of rows. The UPDATE command requires specifying the table and column to update, the new value, and a condition to identify which rows to update when not directly specifying a row identifier. For example, the command "UPDATE products SET price = 10 WHERE price = 5" would update the price column to 10 for any rows where the original price was 5.

Uploaded by

diwa karn
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Updating Data

The modification of data that is already in the database is referred to as


updating. You can update
individual rows, all the rows in a table, or a subset of all rows. Each column can
be updated separately;
the other columns are not affected.
To update existing rows, use the UPDATE command. This requires three pieces of
information:
1. The name of the table and column to update
2. The new value of the column
3. Which row(s) to update
Recall from Chapter 5 that SQL does not, in general, provide a unique identifier
for rows. Therefore it
is not always possible to directly specify which row to update. Instead, you
specify which conditions
a row must meet in order to be updated. Only if you have a primary key in the table
(independent
of whether you declared it or not) can you reliably address individual rows by
choosing a condition
that matches the primary key. Graphical database access tools rely on this fact to
allow you to update
rows individually.
For example, this command updates all products that have a price of 5 to have a
price of 10:
UPDATE products SET price = 10 WHERE price = 5;
This might cause zero, one, or many rows to be updated. It is not an error to
attempt an update that
does not match any rows.
Let's look at that command in detail. First is the key word UPDATE followed by the
table name. As
usual, the table name can be schema-qualified, otherwise it is looked up in the
path. Next is the key
word SET followed by the column name, an equal sign, and the new column value. The
new column
value can be any scalar expression, not just a constant. For example, if you want
to raise the price of
all products by 10% you could use:
UPDATE products SET price = price * 1.10;
As you see, the expression for the new value can refer to the existing value(s) in
the row. We also left
out the WHERE clause. If it is omitted, it means that all rows in the table are
updated. If it is present,
only those rows that match the WHERE condition are updated. Note that the equals
sign in the SET
clause is an assignment while the one in the WHERE clause is a comparison, but this
does not create any
ambiguity. Of course, the WHERE condition does not have to be an equality test.
Many other operators
are available (see Chapter 9). But the expression needs to evaluate to a Boolean
result.
You can update more than one column in an UPDATE command by listing more than one
assignment
in the SET clause. For example:
UPDATE mytable SET a = 5, b = 3, c = 1 WHERE a > 0;

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