GIFT School of Engineering

and Applied Sciences

Spring 2024

CS-244: Database Systems-Lab

Lab-11 Manual
Single Row Functions in SQL
 Lab-11 Manual 2024

Introduction to Lab
Functions make the basic query block more powerful, and they are used to manipulate data values.
This is the first of two labs that explore functions. It focuses on single-row character, number. The
main topics of this lab include:
1. SQL Functions
2. Two Types of SQL Functions
3. Single-Row Functions
4. Character Functions
5. Case-Manipulation Functions
6. Using Case-Manipulation Functions
7. Character-Manipulation Functions
8. Using the Character-Manipulation Functions
9. Number Functions
10. Using the ROUND Function
11. Using the TRUNC Function
12. Using the MOD Function
13. NVL Function
14. Practice SQL Statements
15. SOLUTIONS: Practice SQL Statements

Objectives of this Lab

At the end of this lab, students should be able to:

1. Describe various types of functions that are available in SQL

2. Use character, number in SELECT statements
3. Understand the use of NVL function in case of NULL values

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1. SQL Functions

Functions are a very powerful feature of SQL. They can be used to do the following:
 Perform calculations on data
 Modify individual data items
 Manipulate output for groups of rows
 Format dates and numbers for display
 Convert column data types
SQL functions sometimes take arguments and always return a value.
Note: Most of the functions that are described in this lab are specific to the MySQL version of SQL.

2.. Two Types of SQL Functions

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There are two types of functions:

 Single-row functions
 Multiple-row functions
Single-Row Functions
These functions operate on single rows only and return one result per row. There are
different types of single-row functions. This lesson covers the following ones:
 Character
 Number
 Date
 Conversion
 General
Multiple-Row Functions
Functions can manipulate groups of rows to give one result per group of rows. These
functions are also known as group functions (covered in a later lab).

3. Single-Row Functions

function_name [(arg1, arg2,...)]

Single-row functions are used to manipulate data items. They accept one or more arguments and
return one value for each row that is returned by the query. An argument can be one of the
following:
 User-supplied constant
 Variable value

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 Column name
 Expression
Features of single-row functions include:
 Acting on each row that is returned in the query
 Returning one result per row
 Possibly returning a data value of a different type than the one that is referenced
 Possibly expecting one or more arguments
 Can be used in SELECT, WHERE, and ORDER BY clauses; can be nested

In the syntax: function_name is the name of the

function

arg1, arg2 is any argument to be used by the function. This can be represented by a
column name or expression.

This lab covers the following single-row functions:

 Character functions
- Accept character input and can return both character and number values
 Number functions
- Accept numeric input and return numeric values
 Date functions

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- Operate on values of the DATE data type (All date functions return a value of DATE
data type except the MONTHS_BETWEEN function, which returns a number.)
 Conversion functions
- Convert a value from one data type to another
• General functions:
- IFNULL
- NULLIF(exp1, exp2): returns null if both expressions have same
value.
- COALESCE(exp1, Default Value): The COALESCE function is used
in SQL to handle NULL values and provide a default value when
dealing with potentially missing data.
- CASE: works just like IF-ELS
4. Character Functions

Single-row character functions accept character data as input and can return both character and
numeric values. Character functions can be divided into the following:
 Case-manipulation functions
 Character-manipulation functions

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5. Case-Manipulation Functions
LOWER, UPPER, and INITCAP are the three case-conversion functions.

 LOWER
Converts mixed-case or uppercase character strings to lowercase
 UPPER
Converts mixed-case or lowercase character strings to uppercase
SELECT concat('The job id for ' , UPPER(FIRST_NAME) , ' is ' ,
LOWER(JOB_TITLE)) AS "EMPLOYEE DETAILS"
FROM employees NATURAL JOIN jobs;

6. Using Case-Manipulation Functions

Display the employee number, name, and department number for employee Clark:
SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID, concat(FIRST_NAME, " " , LAST_NAME) "Employee
Name", DEPARTMENT_ID
FROM employees
WHERE BINARY FIRST_NAME = 'neena';
no rows selected
Note: as Mysql performs a case in-sensitive comparison, that’s
why we have used BINARY keyword, which compares the binary
sequence and makes the query case-sensitive.
As the employee names are stored in “Title Case”, no rows are selected using the above query.

However, the correct version of the above query may be written as:
SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID, concat(FIRST_NAME, " " , LAST_NAME) "Employee
Name", DEPARTMENT_ID
FROM employees
WHERE BINARY FIRST_NAME = 'Neena';

7. Character-Manipulation Functions
CONCAT, SUBSTR, LENGTH, INSTR, LPAD, RPAD, and TRIM are the character
manipulation functions that are covered in this lab.
 CONCAT
- Joins values together (You are limited to using two parameters with CONCAT.)
 SUBSTR
- Extracts a string of determined length
 LENGTH
- Shows the length of a string as a numeric value
 INSTR
- Finds the numeric position of a named character
 LPAD
- Pads the character value right-justified
 RPAD

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- Pads the character value left-justified

 TRIM
- Trims heading or trailing characters (or both) from a character string (If
trim_character or trim_source is a character literal; you must enclose it in
single quotation marks.)

Function Result

CONCAT('Hello', 'World') HelloWorld

SUBSTR('HelloWorld',1,5) Hello

LENGTH('HelloWorld') 10

INSTR('HelloWorld', 'W') 6

LPAD(salary,10,'*') *****24000

RPAD(salary, 10, '*') 24000*****

REPLACE BLACK and BLUE

('JACK and JUE','J','BL')

Syntax:
REPLACE(original_string, target_substring,
replacement_substring)
TRIM('H' FROM 'HelloWorld') elloWorld

8. Using the Character-Manipulation Functions

This example displays employee names and employee numbers joined together, the length of the
employee name, and the numeric position of the letter a in the employee name for all employees
who have the string MAN contained in the job starting at the sixth position of the job.
SELECT substr(DEPARTMENT_NAME, 1, 3)"Substr",
DEPARTMENT_ID
FROM departments WHERE DEPARTMENT_ID = 90 ;

SELECT FIRST_NAME, JOB_TITLE, LENGTH

(FIRST_NAME), INSTR(FIRST_NAME, 'a')
"Contains 'a' at?"
FROM employees NATURAL JOIN jobs
WHERE SUBSTR(JOB_TITLE, 7) = 'Clerk';
Modify the SQL statement in the example to display the data for those employees whose names end
with the letter n.

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SELECT employees.EMPLOYEE_ID, CONCAT(employees.EMPLOYEE_ID," ",

employees.FIRST_NAME) "Employee Details",
LENGTH(employees.FIRST_NAME), INSTR(employees.FIRST_NAME, 'w')
"Contains 'w'?" FROM employees

WHERE SUBSTR(employees.FIRST_NAME, -1, 1) = 'm';

Note: here ‘-1’ means that the counting will start at the end of the string.

9. Number Functions
Number functions accept numeric input and return numeric values. This section describes some of
the number functions.

Function Purpose

ROUND(column|expression, n) Rounds the column, expression, or value to n

decimal places or, if n is omitted, no decimal
places (If n is negative, numbers to left of the
decimal point are rounded.)
MOD(m,n) Returns the remainder of m divided by n

10. Using the ROUND Function

The ROUND function rounds the column, expression, or value to n decimal places. If the second
argument is 0 or is missing, the value is rounded to zero decimal places. If the second argument is 2,
the value is rounded to two decimal places. Conversely, if the second argument is –2, the value is
rounded to two decimal places to the left (rounded to the nearest unit of 10).
The ROUND function can also be used with date functions. You will see examples later in this lab.
SELECT ROUND(45.925,2), ROUND(45.923,0)
FROM DUAL;

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12. Using the MOD Function

The MOD function finds the remainder of the first argument divided by the second argument.

This example calculates the remainder of the salary after dividing it by 500 for all employees whose
job is SALESMAN.

SELECT FIRST_NAME, SALARY, MOD(salary, 500)

FROM employees
WHERE JOB_ID = 'ST_MAN';

Note: The MOD function is often used to determine if a value is odd or even

13. IFNULL Function

To convert a null value to an actual value, use the IFNULL function.
Syntax
IFNULL (expr1, expr2)
In the syntax:
 expr1 is the source value or expression that may contain a null
 expr2 is the target value for converting the null
You can use the IFNULL function to convert any data type, but the return value is always the same
as the data type of expr1.

Data types that can be used are date, character, and number. Data types must match:

 IFNULL(commission_pct,0)
 IFNULL(hire_date,'01-JAN-97')
 IFNULL(job_ID,'No Job Yet')
Example:
To calculate the annual compensation of all employees, you need to multiply the monthly salary by
12 and then add the commission percentage to the result:

SELECT ename, sal, comm, IFNULL(comm, 0), (sal*12) +

(sal*12*IFNULL(comm, 0)) AN_SAL FROM emp;

14. Practice SELECT Statements

Write SELECT statements for the following:
1. Write a query to display the current date. Label the column Date.

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2. The HR department needs a report to display the employee ID, name, salary, and salary
increased by 15.5% (expressed as a whole number) for each employee. Label the col-
umn New Salary.
3. Modify above query to add a column that subtracts the old salary from the new salary.
Label the column Increase. Round the “increase” to two decimal places.
4. Write a query that displays the employee name (with the first letter lowercase and all
other letters uppercase) and the length of the last name for all employees whose name
starts with the letters j, a, or m. Give each column an appropriate label. Sort the results
by the employees’ names.
5. Create a report that produces the following for each employee: <employee name> earns
<salary> monthly but wants <3 times salary>. Label the column Dream Salaries.
6. Create a query to display the last name and salary for all employees. Format the salary
to be 15 characters long, left-padded with the $ symbol. Label the column SALARY.
7. Create a query that displays the first eight characters of the employees’ first name and
indicates the amounts of their salaries with asterisks. Each asterisk signifies a thousand
dollars. Sort the data in descending order of salary. Label the column
EMPLOYEES_AND_THEIR_SALARIES. Also display its original salary.
8. The HR department wants to find the length of employment for each employee. For
each employee, display the name and calculate the number of months between today
and the date on which the employee was hired. Label the column MONTHS_WORKED.
Order your
results by the number of months employed. Round the number of months up to the
closest whole number.
9. Create a query that displays the employees’ last names and commission amounts. If an
employee does not earn commission, show “No Commission.” Label the column COMM.
The End

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