Lab 1 - Table Definition, Manipulation and Simple Queries

1. INTRODUCTION
Oracle is a relational database management system (DBMS) that stores, manages, and
manipulates data. It consists of the database manager, the Database Administrator
utility and other user utilities. The query language which will be used is called SQL
(an acronym for Structured Query Language), and is implemented as part of a
package called SQL*Plus distributed by ORACLE corporation.

2. USING SQL*PLUS
2.1 Logging into the gateway server
Launch the Terminal. Enter SSH [email protected] for Host Name
and your EID for User Name. Answer Yes to the Host Identification question. Then
enter your password for EID as your login password. You can then see the server
shell command prompt.

2.2 Starting SQL*Plus

To start SQL*Plus, first login gateway server account and then type the following
command:
sqlplus
From now on the username will be your EID and password for the sql system will
be your student ID (8 digit number).

SQL*Plus will display the version of the Oracle Server and JServer already built in:
SQL*Plus: Release 9.0.1.0.0 - Production on Wed Jan 26 14:22:52 2011

(c) Copyright 2001 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit
Production With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application
Testing options

Then the SQL* Plus command prompt appears:

SQL>
This indicates that SQL*Plus is ready to accept your commands.

2.3 Exiting from SQL*Plus

When you have finished working with SQL*Plus and want to exit from the SQL*Plus
environment, enter the following command at the SQL*Plus command prompt:
SQL> exit OR SQL> quit
You will be disconnected from Oracle and return to the UNIX prompt.
Always remember to type exit or quit to terminate the SQL*Plus
session normally. Otherwise your modification to the database may
not take effect and your data may be lost.

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2.4 Getting Help
You may get information on the commands and conventions of SQL*Plus, SQL, and
PL/SQL using help command:
SQL > help
The following command displays a list of SQL*Plus, SQL and PL/SQL commands:
SQL > help index
Get help on the SQL*Plus clause LIST:
SQL > help list

3. LAB OBJECTIVES
In this lab section, you will learn to:
 Define tables
- Create your own tables
- Drop your own tables
 Manipulate tables
- Insert tuples into your tables
- Altering your own tables
 Query information from tables
- Select all the columns from a table
- Select specific columns from a table
 Creating a new table from existing data
 Updating data in tables
 Deleting tuples rows in tables

4. BASIC CONCEPT ON RELATIONAL DATABASE

A database is an organized collection of information. In a relational database, the
information is organized in the form of tables. In this lab, we will cover two of the
most important components of a database: tables and queries. Each student needs to
create the following tables and insert records into the corresponding tables.
Information stored in these tables is needed for all the laboratory exercise in this
course.
The following set of tables contains the personal records for a fictitious company.
EMP contains information about the employees of the company
DEPT contains information about the departments of the company
SALGRADE group salary ranges into grades

DEPT
DEPTNO DNAME LOC
10 ACCOUNTING NEW YORK
20 RESEARCH DALLAS
30 SALES CHICAGO
40 OPERATIONS BOSTON

SALGRADE
GRADE LOSAL HISAL
1 700 1200
2 1201 1400

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3 1401 2000
4 2001 3000
5 3001 9999

EMP
EMPNO ENAME JOB MGR HIREDATE SAL COMM DEPTNO
7369 SMITH CLERK 7902 17-DEC-80 800 20
7499 ALLEN SALESMAN 7698 20-FEB-81 1600 300 30
7521 WARD SALESMAN 7698 22-FEB-81 1250 500 30
7655 JONES MANAGER 7839 2-APR-81 2975 20
7654 MARTIN SALESMAN 7698 28-SEP-81 1250 1400 30
7698 BLAKE MANAGER 7839 1-MAY-91 2850 30
7782 CLARK MANAGER 7839 9-JUN-81 2450 10
7788 SCOTT ANALYST 7655 21-MAR-87 3000 20
7839 KING PRESIDENT 12-NOV-81 5000 0 10
7844 TURNER SALESMAN 7698 18-SEP-81 1500 30
7876 ADAMS CLERK 7788 24-APR-87 1100 20
7900 JAMES CLERK 7698 3-DEC-81 950 30
7902 FORD ANALYST 7655 3-DEC-81 3000 20
7934 MILLER CLERK 7782 3-JAN-81 1300 10

5. SIMPLE DEFINITION OF TABLES

5.1 Create Tables
To create a user-defined table, a CREATE TABLE command is available which
defines the table’s name, its columns/attributes and other properties.
5.1.1 Common Data Types
CHAR (n)
n = maximum length of char string

NUMBER (n,d)
n = maximum number of digits
d = maximum number of digits right of decimal.

DATE
The relevant data plus the actual time of day

LONG
Up to 65,536 characters (64K) may be stored per field

RAW
Raw binary data

5.1.2 Forbidding NULL Values

To forbid NULL values in a column, enter the NOT NULL clause at the end of the
column information. For example, the command:
SQL > CREATE TABLE DEPT
2 (DEPTNO NUMBER (2) NOT NULL,
3 DNAME VARCHAR (15),
4 LOC VARCHAR (15));

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creates the table definition of DEPT into your local database.
The SALGRADE and EMP tables are created as follows:
SQL > CREATE TABLE SALGRADE
2 (GRADE NUMBER,
3 LOSAL NUMBER,
4 HISAL NUMBER);

SQL > CREATE TABLE EMP

2 (EMPNO NUMBER (4) NOT NULL,
3 ENAME VARCHAR (15),
4 JOB VARCHAR (15),
5 MGR NUMBER (4),
6 HIREDATE DATE,
7 SAL NUMBER (7,2),
8 COMM NUMBER (7,2),
9 DEPTNO NUMBER (2));

5.2 The DESCRIBE Command

You can use the DESCRIBE command to obtain a description of a specific table. The
description will contain
Name - name of column
Null? - whether null values are allowed in this column
Type - data type of column

SQL > DESCRIBE DEPT

5.3 Drop Tables

To destroy the table and its contents, use the DROP TABLE command:
SQL > DROP TABLE DEPT;
For the time being, don’t use this command as you’ll need the tables created for future
uses.

6. SIMPLE MANIPULATIONS OF TABLES

6.1 Inserting Tuples into Tables
After the table is created, you can use the INSERT…VALUES command to insert
tuples/rows into your table. For example, the command:
SQL > INSERT INTO DEPT
2 VALUES (10, ‘ACCOUNTING’, ‘NEW YORK’);
inserts the first tuple into DEPT table.

User variables & (or called substitution variable) can be used to help reduce the
tedium of data insertion. For example, to insert rows into the DEPT table, enter the
following command:
SQL > INSERT INTO DEPT
2 VALUES (&DEPTNO, ‘&DNAME’, ‘&LOC’);
and just repeatedly invoke this command by typing / or the RUN command, and
enter new values accordingly. For those entries that are “empty”, e.g. some COMM
fields, use NULL as the input.

To run the script file we prepared for inserting all tuples, enter the following :
SQL > START /public/cs3402/Lab1Data.sql

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After each insert, update and delete operations that would modify the data
in the database, you are suggested to do a “COMMIT” operation to
ensure the changes take effect immediately:

SQL> COMMIT;

Commit complete.

6.2 Altering Tables

You may add a new column or change the length of an existing column by using the
ALTER TABLE command with either the ADD or MODIFY parameters. Note that
you may not reduce the width of a column if it contains data, nor may you change
data type unless the column is empty.
 Change the length of column LOC in table DEPT from 15 to 20
SQL > ALTER TABLE DEPT
2 MODIFY (LOC VARCHAR(20));

7. SIMPLE QUERIES ON THE TABLES

To retrieve information out of the database, SELECT command is available for
various kinds of queries against the database. The following starts with some simple
usages of the SELECT command. More sophisticated ones will be illustrated and
conducted in subsequent lab classes. We now begin the tutorial on this command with
the SELECT clause.

7.1 The SELECT Clause

A SELECT command must have at least two clauses:
SELECT the columns to retrieve
FROM the tables which contain those columns
You may place the clauses on the same line or on separate lines. Always follow the
last clause in the command with a semicolon (;). For example, the command:
SQL > SELECT DNAME FROM DEPT;
Displays the information in the department name column (DNAME) from the table
DEPT. It could also be entered as:
SQL > SELECT DNAME
2 FROM DEPT;
or even:
SQL > SELECT DNAME
2 FROM DEPT
3;
For the time being, we will only SELECT columns from one table at a time.
Combining tables will be considered in later labs.

7.1.1 Selecting All the Columns from a Table

(1) Select every column of the DEPT list the names of the columns:
SQL > SELECT DEPTNO, DNAME, LOC
2 FROM DEPT;
If all the columns of a table are to be selected you may use an asterisk (*) in place of
the list of column names.
(2) Select all the columns from a table
SQL > SELECT * FROM DEPT;

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7.1.2 Selecting Specific Columns from a Table
If only some of the columns are to be selected then list only the names of the columns
that you want to see.
 Select just the DNAME and DEPTNO columns from the DEPT table.
SQL > SELECT DNAME, DEPTNO FROM DEPT;

The order in which the columns are listed in the SELECT clause controls the left-to-
right sequence in which the columns are displayed. When an asterisk is used, the
left-to-right sequence in which the columns are displayed is the order in which they
were defined when the table was created.
 Select all columns from the EMP table.
SQL > SELECT * FROM EMP;

Look at the results of the queries in this section. Notice that the result of any query is
itself a table called the result table – made up of columns and rows.
 List all the jobs in the EMP table without eliminating duplicates.
SQL > SELECT JOB FROM EMP;

You can eliminate duplicate rows in the result by specifying DISTINCT in the
SELECT clause.
 List all the DISTINCT jobs in the EMP table.
SQL > SELECT DISTINCT JOB FROM EMP;

7.2 The WHERE Clause

In this subsection, you will learn about:
 Selecting specific rows from a table
 Selecting rows that satisfy multiple conditions
 Selecting rows that satisfy one of several conditions
 Selecting rows that DO NOT meet certain conditions
 Selecting rows using both ANDs and ORs – Boolean Precedence

7.2.1 Selecting Specific Rows from a Table

In the previous examples, all the rows of the table were selected. But suppose you
want to retrieve only the employees in department 30. To do this, you will need to use
a WHERE clause in your SELECT command. A WHERE clause, when used, always
follows the FROM clause.
SELECT some columns
FROM some tables
WHERE certain conditions are met
Try the following example:
 Select only the employees in department 30.
SQL > SELECT *
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
A WHERE clause causes a “search” to be made, and only those rows that meet the
search-conditions are retrieved. In the example above, only those rows WHERE the
employee’s department number is equal to 30 will be selected. That is, the WHERE
clause was used to compare values stored in the DEPTNO column of the EMP table
with the value 30 that you specified as a part of the query.

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 WHERE DEPTNO = 30
WHERE Column-name Comparison-operator Constant-value
A WHERE clause can contain a numeric constant-value (30 in the example above)
or a character constant-value shown as in the example below.
 List the names, numbers, and departments of all clerks
SQL > SELECT ENAME, EMPNO, DEPTNO
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘CLERK’;

If the constant value that you specify is character data then it has to be enclosed in
single quotes (‘CLERK’). The case also matters: try the previous query, but replace
CLERK by clerk. Numeric data does not need to be enclosed in quotes.

A WHERE clause search condition can use any of the following comparison
operators:
= Equal to
!= Not equal to
> Greater than
>= Greater than or equal to
< Less than
<= Less than or equal to

 Find the names and department numbers of all departments with a department
number greater than 20.
SQL > SELECT DNAME,DEPTNO
2 FROM DEPT
3 WHERE DEPTNO > 20;

 Find the names and department numbers of all departments with a department
number greater than or equal to 20.
SQL > SELECT DNAME, DEPTNO
2 FROM DEPT
3 WHERE DEPTNO >=20;

In addition to a comparison with a constant-value, a WHERE clause can compare a

value stored in one column of a row with a value in another column of the same row.
WHERE SAL > COMM
WHERE Column-name Comparison-operator Column-name

 Find the employees whose commission is greater than his salary.

SQL > SELECT ENAME, SAL, COMM
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE COMM > SAL;

7.2.2 Selecting Rows That Satisfy Multiple Conditions

At times, it is necessary to specify more than one search-condition in a WHERE
clause to retrieve the desired rows from a table.
 List the name, job, title and salary of all employees in department 20 that make
more than $2,000.
SQL > SELECT ENAME, JOB, SAL

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 2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE DEPTNO = 20
4 AND SAL > 2000;
Here, the two search conditions are connected by the word AND. The AND means
that both search-conditions must be true for a given row to be retrieved. Any number
of search-conditions may be ANDed to a WHERE clause.
 Find all the salesmen in department 30 who have a salary greater then or equal to
$1,500.
SQL > SELECT ENAME, SAL, DEPTNO
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘SALESMAN’
4 AND DEPTNO = 30
5 AND SAL >= 1500;

7.2.3 Selecting Rows That Satisfy One of Several Conditions

In addition to selecting rows that meet several conditions, you are also to select rows
that meet one of several conditions.
 Find all the employees whose job is either manager or president.
SQL > SELECT ENAME, JOB, SAL
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘MANAGER’
4 OR JOB = ‘PRESIDENT’;

Here the search-conditions are connected by the word OR. OR means that if either
search-condition is true then the row is to be selected.

7.2.4 Selecting Rows that DO NOT Meet Certain Conditions

You can select rows that do not meet certain conditions as well as rows that do meet
certain conditions.
 Find all managers who are NOT in department 30.
SQL > SELECT ENAME, SAL, COMM, JOB, DEPTNO
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘MANAGER’
4 AND DEPTNO != 30;

7.2.5 Selecting Rows Using Both AND’s and OR’s

AND and OR may be combined in the same query to specify as many search
conditions as are necessary to select the desired rows.
 Find everyone whose job title is manager, and all the clerks in department 10.
SQL > SELECT *
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘MANAGER’
4 OR JOB = ‘CLERK’ AND DEPTNO = 10;

The WHERE clause in the above query can be written suing parentheses without
changing the meaning of query.
 Find all the manager (in any department), and all the clerks in department 10.
SQL > SELECT *
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE JOB = ‘MANAGER’

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 4 OR (JOB = ‘CLERK’ AND DEPTNO = 10);

Parentheses are sued to group search-conditions together to control the sequence in

which the search-conditions are applied. This is called logical precedence. Depending
on position of the parentheses, the meaning of the WHERE clause may be changed
 Issue the same query again with the parentheses grouping the first two search
conditions inserted of the last two.
SQL > SELECT *
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE (JOB = ‘MANAGER’ OR JOB = ‘CLERK’)
4 AND DEPTNO = 10;

Notice how in the last query both managers and clerks have to be in department 10,
not just the clerks. When a WHERE clause contains more than two search conditions
you should use parentheses to “classify the meaning” of the WHERE clause.

Any group of search-conditions can be negated by enclosing them in parentheses and

preceding them with a NOT.
 Find everyone who is neither a manger nor a clerk, but is in department 10.
SQL > SELECT *
2 FROM EMP
3 WHERE NOT (JOB = ‘MANAGER’ OR JOB = ‘CLERK’)
4 AND DEPTNO = 10;

8. DATA MANIPULATION
8.1 Creating a New Table From Existing Data
You can create a new table containing data from existing tables.
 Create a new table MY_EMP from existing table EMP.
SQL > CREATE TABLE MY_EMP AS
2 SELECT * FROM EMP;

8.2 Updating Data in Tables

The update statement changes all or part of an existing row in a single table.
 Update the salary of the President in the MY_EMP table.
SQL > UPDATE MY_EMP
2 SET SAL = SAL *1.1
3 WHERE JOB = ‘PRESIDENT’;

8.3 Deleting Tuples in Tables

The delete statement is to remove rows from a single table.
 Delete the tuples in MY_EMP where the employee’s JOB is CLERK.
SQL > DELETE FROM MY_EMP
2 WHERE JOB = ‘CLERK’;