SQL- Data Definition Language

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

SUNY 1
DDL
Introduction
• To understand the SQL Data Definition Language
– Create
– Insert
– Delete
– Drop
– Truncate
– Alter

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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 Section I

Data Definition Language

Introduction

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 DDL
Creating a Database
• To initialize a new database:
• Syntax:
CREATE DATABASE database_name
• There are numerous arguments that go along with this command
but are database specific
• Only some databases require database to be created and space to
be allocated prior to creation of tables.
• Some databases provide graphical user interfaces to create
databases and allocate space.
– Access only allows database to be created using User Interface

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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 DDL
Creating a Table
• Syntax
CREATE TABLE table_name
(Column_name datatype[(size)],
Column_name datatype[(size)],
)
• Example
CREATE TABLE books
(ISBN char(20),
Title char(50),
AuthorID Integer,
Price float)
• Creates a table with four columns

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 DDL
Data Types
• Following broad categories of data types exist in
most databases:
– String Data
– Numeric Data
– Temporal Data
– Large Objects

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DDL
String Data
• Fixed Length:
• Occupies the same length of space in memory no matter how
much data is stored in them.
• Syntax:
char(n) where n is the length of the String
e.g. name char(50)
• If the variable stored for name is ‘Sanjay’ the extra 43 fields
are padded with blanks

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DDL
String Data
• Variable Length string is specified with maximum length of
characters possible in the string, however, the allocation is
sized to the size of the data stored in memory.
• Syntax:
Varchar(n) – n is the maximum length of data possible for the type
• There may be a restriction in the maximum length of the data
that you can specify in the declaration which will vary
according to the database.
• All character data has to be enclosed in single quotes during
specification.

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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DDL
Numeric Data Types
• Store all the data related to purely numeric data.
• Some numeric data may also be stored as a character field e.g.
zip codes
• Common Numeric Types:
– Decimal Floating point number
– Float Floating point number
– Integer(size) Integer of specified length
– Money A number which contains exactly two digits after the
decimal point
– Number A standard number field that can hold a floating
point data

Note: Different databases name their numeric fields differently and may not
support all numeric types. They may also support additional numeric
types.
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DDL
Temporal Data Types
• These represent the dates and time:
• Three basic types are supported:
– Dates
– Times
– Date-Time Combinations

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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DDL
Large Data Objects
• These are used for storing data objects like files and
images:
• There are two types:
– Character Large Objects (clobs)
– Binary Large Objects (blobs)

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DDL
Specifying Keys- Introduction
• Unique keyword is used to specify keys.
– This ensures that duplicate rows are not created in the database.
• Both Primary keys and Candidate Keys can be specified in the database.
• Once a set of columns has been declared unique any data entered that
duplicates the data in these columns is rejected.
• Specifying a single column as unique:
• Example
CREATE TABLE Studios
(studio_id Number,
name char(20),
city varchar(50),
state char(2),
UNIQUE (name))
• Here the name column has been declared as a candidate key

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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DDL
Specifying Keys- Multiple Columns
• Specifying multiple columns as unique:
• Example:
CREATE TABLE Studios
(studio_id Number,
name char(20),
city varchar(50),
state char(2),
UNIQUE (name),
UNIQUE(city, state))
• Here both name & city/state combination are declared as
candidate keys

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DDL
Specifying Keys- Primary Key
• Specifying multiple columns as unique:
• To specify the Primary Key the Primary Key clause is used

• Example:
CREATE TABLE Studios
(studio_id Number,
name char(20),
city varchar(50),
state char(2),
PRIMARY KEY (studio_id),
UNIQUE (name),
UNIQUE(city, state)
)

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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DDL
Specifying Keys- Single and MultiColumn Keys
• Single column keys can be defined at the column level instead
of at the table level at the end of the field descriptions.
• MultiColumn keys still need to be defined separately at the
table level

CREATE TABLE Studios

(studio_id Number PRIMARY KEY,
name char(20) UNIQUE,
city varchar(50),
state char(2),
Unique(city, state))

• Note: Some databases require the use of Unique Index for

specification of keys.
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DDL
Specifying Keys- Foreign Keys
• References clause is used to create a relationship between a set
of columns in one table and a candidate key in the table that is
being referenced.

• Example:

CREATE TABLE Movies

(movie_title varchar(40),
studio_id Number REFERENCES Studios(studio_id))

• Creates a relationship from the Movies table to the Studios

table

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DDL
Constraints- Disallowing Null Values
Disallowing Null Values:
– Null values entered into a column means that the data in not known.
– These can cause problems in Querying the database.
– Specifying Primary Key automatically prevents null being entered in
columns which specify the primary key

• Not Null clause is used in preventing null values from being

entered in a column.
• Example:
CREATE TABLE Studios
( studio_id number PRIMARY KEY,
name char(20) NOT NULL,
city varchar(50) NOT NULL,
state char(2) NOT NULL)

• Null clause can be used to explicitly allow null values in a

column also

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DDL
Constraints- Value Constraints
Value Constraints:
– Allows value inserted in the column to be checked condition in the column constraint.
• Check clause is used to create a constraint in SQL
• Example:
CREATE TABLE Movies
(movie_title varchar(40) PRIMARY KEY,
studio_id Number,
budget Number check (budget > 50000)
)
• Table level constraints can also be defined using the Constraint keyword
• Example:
CREATE TABLE Movies
(movie_title varchar(40) PRIMARY KEY,
studio_id Number,
budget Number check (budget > 50000),
release_date Date,
CONSTRAINT release_date_constraint Check (release_date between ’01-Jan-1980’ and
’31-dec-1989))
• Such constraints can be activated and deactivated as required.
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DDL
Constraints- Default Value
Default Value:
– A default value can be inserted in any column by using the Default
keyword.
• Example:
CREATE TABLE Movies (
movie_title varchar(40) NOT NULL,
release_date date DEFAULT sysdate NULL,
genre varchar(20) DEFAULT ‘Comedy’ Check genere In (‘Comedy’,
‘Horror’, ‘Drama’)
)

• Table level constraints can also be defined using the

Constraint keyword
• release_date defaults to the current date, however Null value is enabled in
the column which will need to be added explicitly when data is added.
• Note: Any valid expression
Sanjay Goel, Schoolcan be University
of Business, used while
at Albany, specifying constraints
SUNY 19
Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,
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Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,
SUNY 21
Lab 1
• Create a DB name as UniverisyDB
• Use the following Schema to construct table
– Student{StdID,Stdname,StdAddress,StdDOB,St
dTlephone,Stdemail}
– Teacher{TID,Tname,Taddress,Tqualification,Ta
ddress,Temail}
– Semester{TID,SID,SID,Semester}

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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 Section II

DML
Modifying Records

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Modifying Records
Insert Statement
• Insert:
– Allows you to add new records to the Table
• Syntax:
– Insert into table_name[(column_list)] values (value_list)
• Example:
INSERT INTO studios
VALUES (1, ‘Giant’, ‘Los Angeles’, ‘CA’)

INSERT INTO studios

(studio_city, studio_state, studio_name, studio_id)
VALUES (‘Burbank’, ‘CA’, ‘MPM’, 2)
• Notes1: If the columns are not specified as in the first example the data
goes in the order specified in the table
• Notes2: There are two ways of inserting Null values
1. If the field has a default value of Null, you can use an Insert statement
that ignores the column where the value is to be Null.
2. You can specify the column in the column list specification and assign a
value of Null to the corresponding value field.
Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,
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Modifying Records
Delete Statement
• Delete Statement:
– is used to remove records from a table of the database. The where
clause in the syntax is used to restrict the rows deleted from the table
otherwise all the rows from the table are deleted.

• Syntax: DELETE FROM table_name [WHERE Condition]

• Example:
DELETE FROM City_State
WHERE state = ‘TX’

• Deletes all the rows where the state is Texas keeps all the
other rows.

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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Modifying Records
Update Statement
• Update Statement:
– used to make changes to existing rows of the table. It has three parts. First,
you ,must specify which table is going to be updated. The second part of the
statement is the set clause, in which you should specify the columns that will
be updated as well as the values that will be inserted. Finally, the where
clause is used to specify which rows will be updated.

• Syntax:
UPDATE table_name
SET column_name1 = value1, column_name2 = value2, …..
[WHERE Condition]
• Example:
UPDATE studios
SET studio_city = ‘New York’, studio_state = ‘NY’
WHERE studio_id = 1

• Notes1: If the condition is dropped then all the rows are updated.
Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,
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Modifying Records
Truncate Statement
• Truncate Statement:
– used to delete all the rows of a table. Delete can also be used to delete all the
rows from the table. The difference is that delete performs a delete
operation on each row in the table and the database performs all attendant
tasks on the way. On the other had the Truncate statement simply throws
away all the rows at once and is much quicker. The note of caution is that
truncate does not do integrity checks on the way which can lead to
inconsistencies on the way. If there are dependencies requiring integrity
checks we should use delete.

• Syntax: TRUNCATE TABLE table_name

• Example:
TRUNCATE TABLE studios

• This deletes all the rows of the table studios

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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Modifying Records
Drop Statement
• Drop Statement:
– used to remove elements from a database, such as tables, indexes or
even users and databases. Drop command is used with a variety of
keywords based on the need.

• Drop Table Syntax: DROP TABLE table_name

• Drop Table Example: DROP TABLE studios

• Drop Index Syntax: DROP INDEX table_name

• Drop Index Example: DROP INDEX movie_index

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Modifying Records
Alter Statement
• Alter Statement:
– used to make changes to the schema of the table. Columns can be
added and the data type of the columns changed as long as the data
in those columns conforms to the data type specified.

• Syntax:
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD (column datatype [Default Expression])
[REFERENCES table_name (column_name)’
[CHECK condition]

• Example:
ALTER TABLE studios
ADD (revenue Number DEFAULT 0)

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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Modifying Records
Alter Statement
Add table level constraints:
• Syntax:
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD ([CONSTRAINT constraint_name CHECK comparison]
[columns REFERENCES table_name (columns)]
• Example:
ALTER TABLE studios
ADD (CONSTRAINT check_state CHECK (studio_state in (‘TX’, ‘CA’, ‘WA’))

Modify Columns:
• Syntax:
ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY column [data type]
[Default Expression]
[REFERENCES table_name (column_name)’
[CHECK condition]
• Example:
ALTER TABLE People
MODIFY person_union varchar(10)

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Modifying Records
Alter Statement
• Alter Statement:
– used to make changes to the schema of the table. Columns can be
added and the data type of the columns changed as long as the data
in those columns conforms to the data type specified.

• Syntax:
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD (column datatype [Default Expression])
[REFERENCES table_name (column_name)’
[CHECK condition]

• Example:
ALTER TABLE studios
ADD (revenue Number DEFAULT 0)

Sanjay Goel, School of Business, University at Albany,

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