Chapter 5: Advanced SQL

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

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

▪ Accessing SQL From a Programming Language

▪ Functions and Procedures
▪ Triggers
▪ Recursive Queries
▪ Advanced Aggregation Features

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Accessing SQL from a Programming Language

A database programmer must have access to a general-purpose programming language

for at least two reasons

▪ Not all queries can be expressed in SQL, since SQL does not provide the full
expressive power of a general-purpose language.
▪ Non-declarative actions -- such as printing a report, interacting with a user, or
sending the results of a query to a graphical user interface -- cannot be done
from within SQL.

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 Accessing SQL from a Programming Language (Cont.)

There are two approaches to accessing SQL from a general-purpose programming

language

▪ A general-purpose program -- can connect to and communicate with a

database server using a collection of functions
▪ Embedded SQL -- provides a means by which a program can interact with a
database server.
• The SQL statements are translated at compile time into function calls.
• At runtime, these function calls connect to the database using an API
that provides dynamic SQL facilities.

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 JDBC

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 JDBC

▪ JDBC is a Java API for communicating with database systems supporting SQL.
▪ JDBC supports a variety of features for querying and updating data, and for
retrieving query results.
▪ JDBC also supports metadata retrieval, such as querying about relations present in
the database and the names and types of relation attributes.
▪ Model for communicating with the database:
• Open a connection
• Create a “statement” object
• Execute queries using the statement object to send queries and fetch results
• Exception mechanism to handle errors

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 JDBC SUBSECTIONS

▪ Connecting to the Database

▪ Shipping SQL Statements to the Database System
▪ Exceptions and Resource Management
▪ Retrieving the Result of a Query
▪ Prepared Statements
▪ Callable Statements
▪ Metadata Features
▪ Other Features
▪ Database Access from Python

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 ODBC

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 ODBC

▪ Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) standard

• standard for application program to communicate with a database server.
• application program interface (API) to
▪ open a connection with a database,
▪ send queries and updates,
▪ get back results.
▪ Applications such as GUI, spreadsheets, etc. can use ODBC

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL

▪ The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety of programming languages

such as C, C++, Java, Fortran, and PL/1,
▪ A language to which SQL queries are embedded is referred to as a host language, and
the SQL structures permitted in the host language comprise embedded SQL.
▪ The basic form of these languages follows that of the System R embedding of SQL into
PL/1.
▪ EXEC SQL statement is used in the host language to identify embedded SQL request
to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded SQL statement >;
Note: this varies by language:
• In some languages, like COBOL, the semicolon is replaced with END-EXEC
• In Java embedding uses # SQL { …. };

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 Functions and Procedures

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 Functions and Procedures

▪ Functions and procedures allow “business logic” to be stored in the database and
executed from SQL statements.
▪ These can be defined either by the procedural component of SQL or by an
external programming language such as Java, C, or C++.
▪ The syntax we present here is defined by the SQL standard.
• Most databases implement nonstandard versions of this syntax.

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 Declaring SQL Functions

▪ Define a function that, given the name of a department, returns the count of the
number of instructors in that department.
create function dept_count (dept_name varchar(20))
returns integer
begin
declare d_count integer;
select count (* ) into d_count
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name = dept_name
return d_count;
end
▪ The function dept_count can be used to find the department names and budget of
all departments with more that 12 instructors.
select dept_name, budget
from department
where dept_count (dept_name ) > 12

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Table Functions

▪ The SQL standard supports functions that can return tables as results; such functions are
called table functions
▪ Example: Return all instructors in a given department
create function instructor_of (dept_name char(20))
returns table (
ID varchar(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
return table
(select ID, name, dept_name, salary
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name = instructor_of.dept_name)
▪ Usage
select *
from table (instructor_of ('Music'))

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 SQL Procedures

▪ The dept_count function could instead be written as procedure:

create procedure dept_count_proc (in dept_name varchar(20),
out d_count integer)
begin
select count(*) into d_count
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name = dept_count_proc.dept_name
end
▪ The keywords in and out are parameters that are expected to have values assigned
to them and parameters whose values are set in the procedure in order to return
results.
▪ Procedures can be invoked either from an SQL procedure or from embedded SQL,
using the call statement.
declare d_count integer;
call dept_count_proc( 'Physics', d_count);

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 SQL Procedures (Cont.)

▪ Procedures and functions can be invoked also from dynamic SQL

▪ SQL allows more than one procedure of the so long as the number of arguments
of the procedures with the same name is different.
▪ The name, along with the number of arguments, is used to identify the procedure.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Language Constructs for Procedures & Functions

▪ SQL supports constructs that gives it almost all the power of a general-purpose
programming language.
• Warning: most database systems implement their own variant of the standard
syntax below.
▪ Compound statement: begin … end,
• May contain multiple SQL statements between begin and end.
• Local variables can be declared within a compound statements
▪ While and repeat statements:
• while boolean expression do
sequence of statements ;
end while

• repeat
sequence of statements ;
until boolean expression
end repeat

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 Language Constructs (Cont.)

▪ For loop
• Permits iteration over all results of a query
▪ Example: Find the budget of all departments

declare n integer default 0;

for r as
select budget from department where
dept_name = 'Music'
do
set n = n + r.budget
end for

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Language Constructs – if-then-else

▪ Conditional statements (if-then-else)

if boolean expression
then statement or compound statement
elseif boolean expression
then statement or compound statement
else statement or compound statement
end if

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 Example procedure

▪ Registers student after ensuring classroom capacity is not exceeded

• Returns 0 on success and -1 if capacity is exceeded
• See book (page 202) for details
▪ Signaling of exception conditions, and declaring handlers for exceptions
declare out_of_classroom_seats condition
declare exit handler for out_of_classroom_seats
begin
…
end
▪ The statements between the begin and the end can raise an exception by
executing “signal out_of_classroom_seats”
▪ The handler says that if the condition arises he action to be taken is to exit the
enclosing the begin end statement.

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 Triggers

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 Triggers

▪ A trigger is a statement that is executed automatically by the system as a side

effect of a modification to the database.
▪ To design a trigger mechanism, we must:
• Specify the conditions under which the trigger is to be executed.
• Specify the actions to be taken when the trigger executes.
▪ Triggers introduced to SQL standard in SQL:1999, but supported even earlier
using non-standard syntax by most databases.
• Syntax illustrated here may not work exactly on your database system; check
the system manuals

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 Triggering Events and Actions in SQL

▪ Triggering event can be insert, delete or update

▪ Triggers on update can be restricted to specific attributes
• For example, after update of takes on grade
▪ Values of attributes before and after an update can be referenced
• referencing old row as : for deletes and updates
• referencing new row as : for inserts and updates
▪ Triggers can be activated before an event, which can serve as extra constraints.
For example, convert blank grades to null.
create trigger setnull_trigger before update of takes
referencing new row as nrow
for each row
when (nrow.grade = ' ')
begin atomic
set nrow.grade = null;
end;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Trigger to Maintain credits_earned value

▪ create trigger credits_earned after update of takes on (grade)

referencing new row as nrow
referencing old row as orow
for each row
when nrow.grade <> 'F' and nrow.grade is not null
and (orow.grade = 'F' or orow.grade is null)
begin atomic
update student
set tot_cred= tot_cred +
(select credits
from course
where course.course_id= nrow.course_id)
where student.id = nrow.id;
end;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Statement Level Triggers

▪ Instead of executing a separate action for each affected row, a single action can be
executed for all rows affected by a transaction
• Use for each statement instead of for each row
• Use referencing old table or referencing new table to refer to
temporary tables (called transition tables) containing the affected rows
• Can be more efficient when dealing with SQL statements that update a large
number of rows

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 When Not To Use Triggers

▪ Triggers were used earlier for tasks such as

• Maintaining summary data (e.g., total salary of each department)
• Replicating databases by recording changes to special relations (called
change or delta relations) and having a separate process that applies the
changes over to a replica
▪ There are better ways of doing these now:
• Databases today provide built in materialized view facilities to maintain
summary data
• Databases provide built-in support for replication
▪ Encapsulation facilities can be used instead of triggers in many cases
• Define methods to update fields
• Carry out actions as part of the update methods instead of
through a trigger

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 When Not To Use Triggers (Cont.)

▪ Risk of unintended execution of triggers, for example, when

• Loading data from a backup copy
• Replicating updates at a remote site
• Trigger execution can be disabled before such actions.
▪ Other risks with triggers:
• Error leading to failure of critical transactions that set off the trigger
• Cascading execution

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 Recursive Queries

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 Recursion in SQL

▪ SQL:1999 permits recursive view definition

▪ Example: find which courses are a prerequisite, whether directly or indirectly, for a
specific course
with recursive rec_prereq(course_id, prereq_id) as (
select course_id, prereq_id
from prereq
union
select rec_prereq.course_id, prereq.prereq_id,
from rec_rereq, prereq
where rec_prereq.prereq_id = prereq.course_id
)
select ∗
from rec_prereq;
This example view, rec_prereq, is called the transitive closure of the prereq
relation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Power of Recursion

▪ Recursive views make it possible to write queries, such as transitive closure

queries, that cannot be written without recursion or iteration.
• Intuition: Without recursion, a non-recursive non-iterative program can
perform only a fixed number of joins of prereq with itself
▪ This can give only a fixed number of levels of managers
▪ Given a fixed non-recursive query, we can construct a database with a
greater number of levels of prerequisites on which the query will not
work
▪ Alternative: write a procedure to iterate as many times as required
• See procedure findAllPrereqs in book

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Power of Recursion

▪ Computing transitive closure using iteration, adding successive tuples to

rec_prereq
• The next slide shows a prereq relation
• Each step of the iterative process constructs an extended version of
rec_prereq from its recursive definition.
• The final result is called the fixed point of the recursive view definition.
▪ Recursive views are required to be monotonic. That is, if we add tuples to prereq
the view rec_prereq contains all of the tuples it contained before, plus possibly
more

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 Example of Fixed-Point Computation

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 End of Chapter 5

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