Chapter 7:

Advanced SQL

Chapter 7 1
 Objectives
• Define terms
• Write single and multiple table SQL queries
• Define and use three types of joins
• Write noncorrelated and correlated subqueries
• Understand and use SQL in procedural languages
(e.g. PHP, PL/SQL)
• Understand triggers and stored procedures

2
Chapter 7
 Processing Multiple Tables
• Join–a relational operation that causes two or more
tables with a common domain to be combined into a
single table or view
• Equi-join–a join in which the joining condition is
based on equality between values in the common
columns; common columns appear redundantly in the
result table
• Natural join–an equi-join in which one of the
duplicate columns is eliminated in the result table
The common columns in joined tables are usually the primary key
of the dominant table and the foreign key of the dependent table in
1:M relationships.
Chapter 7 3
 Processing Multiple Tables
• Outer join–a join in which rows that do not have
matching values in common columns are
nonetheless included in the result table (as opposed
to inner join, in which rows must have matching
values in order to appear in the result table)

• Union join–includes all columns from each table

in the join, and an instance for each row of each
table

Chapter 7 4
 Figure 7-2
Visualization of different join types with results returned
in shaded area

AND

OR
Chapter 7 5
 The following slides create tables for this
enterprise data model

(from Chapter 1, Figure 1-3)

Chapter 7 6
 Relational Database Tables

CUSTOMER(CustomerID, Name, Address, City, State)

ORDER(OrderID, OrderDate, CustomerID)

ORDER_LINE(OrderID, ProductID, Quantity)

PRODUCT(ProductID, Description, Finish, Price)

Chapter 7
For each customer who placed an order, what is
the customer’s name and order number?

SELECT C.Name, O.OrderID, …

FROM Customer C, Order O
WHERE C.CustomerID = O.CustomerID

CUSTOMER(CustomerID, Name, Address, City, State)

ORDER(OrderID, OrderDate, CustomerID)
ORDER_LINE(OrderID, ProductID, Quantity)
PRODUCT(ProductID, Description, Finish, Price)

Chapter 7 8
Figure 7-1 Pine Valley Furniture Company Customer_T and
Order_T tables with pointers from customers to their orders

These tables are used in queries that follow

Chapter 7 9
9
 Equi-Join Example
• For each customer who placed an order, what is the
customer’s name and order number?

Customer ID
appears twice in the
result

Chapter 7 10
Equi-Join Example – alternative syntax

INNER JOIN clause is an alternative to WHERE clause, and is

used to match primary and foreign keys.

An INNER join will only return rows from each table that have
matching rows in the other.

This query produces same results as previous equi-join example.

Chapter 7 11
 Natural Join Example
• For each customer who placed an order, what is the
customer’s name and order number?
Join involves multiple tables in FROM clause

ON clause performs the equality Note: From Fig. 7-1, you see that only
10 Customers have links with orders.
check for common columns of the
two tables è Only 10 rows will be returned from
this INNER join
Chapter 7 12
 Remarks
• Equi-join = Inner Join = Natural Join
• Use Alias
SELECT C.CustomerID, O.CustomerID, CustomerName, OrderID
FROM CUSTOMER C; ORDER O
WHERE C.CustomerID=O.CustomerID

Chapter 7 13
 OUTER JOIN EXAMPLE
• List the customer name, ID number, and order number for
all customers. Include customer information even for
customers that do have an order.

LEFT OUTER JOIN clause Unlike INNER join, this

causes customer data to will include customer
appear even if there is no rows with no matching
corresponding order data order rows

Chapter 7 14
 Left Outer Join

A B

Chapter 7 15
Outer Join
Results

Unlike
INNER join,
this will
include
customer
rows with no
matching
order rows

Chapter 7 © 2013 Pearson Education 16 16

Figure 7-4 Results from a four-table join (edited for readability)

From CUSTOMER_T table

From ORDER_T table From PRODUCT_T table

Chapter 7 17
 Multiple Table Join Example
• Assemble all information necessary to create an invoice for order
number 1006
SELECT C.CustomerID, C.Name, Address, City, State, O.OrderID,
OrderDate, Quantity, Description, Finish, Price, Price*Quantity
FROM Customer C, Order O, Order_Line OL, Product P
WHERE C.CustomerID=O.CustomerID AND O.OrderID=OL.OrderID
AND OL.ProductID=P.ProductID AND O.OrderID=1006

CUSTOMER(CustomerID, Name, Address, City, State)

ORDER(OrderID, OrderDate, CustomerID)
ORDER_LINE(OrderID, ProductID, Quantity)
PRODUCT(ProductID, Description, Price)

18
Chapter 7
 Multiple Table Join Example
• Assemble all information necessary to create an invoice for order
number 1006

Four tables
involved in
this join

Each pair of tables requires an equality-check condition in the WHERE clause,

matching primary keys against foreign keys.
19
Chapter 7
 Self-Join Example

The same table is

used on both sides
of the join;
distinguished using
table aliases

Self-joins are usually used on tables with unary relationships.

Chapter 7 20
 Explanation of Self-Join
Employee

EID EName Addr …. SEID

Employee Supervise

Employee
EID EName Addr …. SEID
Employee

Supervise Employee_A
EID EName Addr …. SEID
Employee_A

SELECT E.EID, E.Name, A.Name AS Supervisor_Name

FROM Employee E, Employee_A A
WHERE E.EID=A.SEID
Chapter 7 21
 Figure 7-5 Example of a self-join

Chapter 7 22
 Processing Multiple Tables
Using Subqueries
• Subquery–placing an inner query (SELECT statement)
inside an outer query
• Options:
– In a condition of the WHERE clause
– As a “table” of the FROM clause
– Within the HAVING clause
• Subqueries can be:
– Noncorrelated–executed once for the entire outer query
– Correlated–executed once for each row returned by the
outer query

Chapter 7 23
 Subquery Example
• Show all customers who have placed an order
The IN operator will test to
see if the CUSTOMER_ID
value of a row is included in
the list returned from the
subquery

Subquery is embedded in parentheses. In

this case it returns a list that will be used
in the WHERE clause of the outer query
Chapter 7 24
 Join vs. Subquery
• Some queries could be accomplished by either a
join or a subquery

Join version

Subquery version

Chapter 7 25
 Figure 7-6 Graphical depiction of two ways to
answer a query with different types of joins

Chapter 7 26
 Figure 7-6 Graphical depiction of two ways to
answer a query with different types of joins

Chapter 7 27
Comparison of Join and Subqueries

M N M N
items items items K
items
items

M*N Comparisons M*K Comparisons

• Where N>=K

Chapter 7 28
 Correlated vs. Noncorrelated
Subqueries
• Noncorrelated subqueries:
– Do not depend on data from the outer query
– Execute once for the entire outer query
• Correlated subqueries:
– Make use of data from the outer query
– Execute once for each row of the outer query
– Can use the EXISTS operator

Chapter 7 29
 Figure 7-8a Processing a noncorrelated subquery

A noncorrelated subquery processes completely before the outer query begins.

Chapter 7 30
 Correlated Subquery Example
• Show all orders that include furniture finished in natural
ash.
The EXISTS operator will return a
TRUE value if the subquery resulted
in a non-empty set, otherwise it
returns a FALSE

è A correlated subquery always refers to The subquery is testing

an attribute from a table referenced in for a value that comes
the outer query from the outer query
Chapter 7 31
 Figure 7-8b
Processing a
correlated Subquery refers to outer-
subquery query data, so executes once
for each row of outer query

Note: Only the

orders that
involve products
with Natural
Ash will be
included in the
final results.

Chapter 7 32
 Another Subquery Example
• Show all products whose standard price is higher than the
average price
One column of the subquery is an
Subquery forms the derived aggregate function that has an alias
table used in the FROM clause name. That alias can then be
of the outer query
referred to in the outer query.

The WHERE clause normally cannot include aggregate functions, but because
the aggregate is performed in the subquery its result can be used in the outer
query’s WHERE clause.
Chapter 7 33
 Union Queries
• Combine the output (union of multiple queries)
together into a single result table

First query

Combine

Second query

Chapter 7 34
 Figure 7-9 Combining queries using UNION

Note: With
UNION queries,
the quantity and
data types of the
attributes in the
SELECT clauses
of both queries
must be identical.

Chapter 7 © 2013 Pearson Education 35 35

 Find customer’s name and address for those
who placed an order?
SELECT C.Name, C.Address, … SELECT C.Name, C.Address
FROM Customer C, Order O FROM Customer C
WHERE C.CustomerID = WHERE C.CustomerID IN (
O.CustomerID SELECT O.CustomerID
FROM Order O)

CUSTOMER(CustomerID, Name, Address, City, State)

ORDER(OrderID, OrderDate, CustomerID)
ORDER_LINE(OrderID, ProductID, Quantity)
PRODUCT(ProductID, Description, Finish, Price)

Chapter 7 36
 Tips for Developing Queries
• Be familiar with the data model (entities and
relationships)
• Understand the desired results
• Know the attributes desired in results
• Identify the entities that contain desired
attributes
• Review ERD
• Construct a WHERE equality for each link
• Fine tune with GROUP BY and HAVING clauses if
needed
• Consider the effect on unusual data

Chapter 7 37
 Query Efficiency Considerations

• Instead of SELECT *, identify the specific

attributes in the SELECT clause; this helps
reduce network traffic of result set
• Limit the number of subqueries; try to make
everything done in a single query if possible
• If data is to be used many times, make a
separate query and store it as a view

Chapter 7 38
 Guidelines for Better Query Design
• Understand how indexes are used in query
processing
• Keep optimizer statistics up-to-date
• Use compatible data types for fields and literals
• Write simple queries
• Break complex queries into multiple simple parts
• Don’t nest one query inside another query
• Don’t combine a query with itself (if possible avoid
self-joins)

Chapter 7 39
 Guidelines for Better Query Design (cont.)

• Create temporary tables for groups of queries

• Combine update operations
• Retrieve only the data you need
• Don’t have the DBMS sort without an index
• Learn!
• Consider the total query processing time for ad hoc
queries

Chapter 7 40
 DBMS without Transactions

Transaction A Transaction B
T1 Balance = 1000 Balance = 1000
T2 Deposit +100
…
T3 Withdraw -200
T4 Balance = 800
…
T5 Deposit +100
T6 Balance = 1200

Chapter 7 41
 Ensuring Transaction Integrity
• Transaction = A discrete unit of work that must be
completely processed or not processed at all
– May involve multiple updates
– If any update fails, then all other updates must be
cancelled
• SQL commands for transactions
– BEGIN TRANSACTION/END TRANSACTION
• Marks boundaries of a transaction
– COMMIT
• Makes all updates permanent
– ROLLBACK
• Cancels updates since the last COMMIT
Chapter 7 42
 Figure 7-12 An SQL Transaction sequence (in pseudocode)

Chapter 7 43
 Data Dictionary Facilities
• System tables that store metadata
• Users usually can view some of these tables
• Users are restricted from updating them
• Some examples in Oracle 11g
– DBA_TABLES – descriptions of tables
– DBA_CONSTRAINTS – description of constraints
– DBA_USERS – information about the users of the system
• Examples in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
– sys.columns – table and column definitions
– sys.indexes – table index information
– sys.foreign_key_columns – details about columns in foreign
key constraints

Chapter 7 44
 SQL:2008 Enhancements/Extensions

• User-defined data types (UDT)

– Subclasses of standard types or an object type
• Analytical functions (for OLAP)
– CEILING, FLOOR, SQRT, RANK, DENSE_RANK, ROLLUP, CUBE,
SAMPLE,
– WINDOW–improved numerical analysis capabilities
• New Data Types
– BIGINT, MULTISET (collection), XML
• CREATE TABLE LIKE–create a new table similar to an
existing one
• MERGE

Chapter 7 45
 SQL:2008 Enhancements (cont)

• Programming extensions
• Persistent Stored Modules (SQL/PSM)
– Capability to create and drop code modules
– New statements:
• CASE, IF, LOOP, FOR, WHILE, etc.
• Makes SQL into a procedural language
• Oracle has propriety version called PL/SQL,
and Microsoft SQL Server has Transact/SQL

Chapter 7 46
 Routines and Triggers
• Routines
– Program modules that execute on demand
• Functions–routines that return values and
take input parameters
• Procedures–routines that do not return values
and can take input or output parameters
• Triggers–routines that execute in response to
a database event (INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE)

Chapter 7 47
Figure7-13 Triggers contrasted with stored procedures (based on Mullins 1995)

Procedures are called explicitly

Source: adapted from Mullins, 1995.

Triggers are event-driven
Chapter 7 48
Chapter 7 50
 Embedded and Dynamic SQL
• Embedded SQL
– Including hard-coded SQL statements in a
program written in another language such as C
or Java
• Dynamic SQL
– Ability for an application program to generate
SQL code on the fly, as the application is
running

Chapter 7 51
 Reasons to Embed SQL in 3GL

• Can create a more flexible, accessible

interface for the user
• Possible performance improvement
• Database security improvement; grant
access only to the application instead of
users

Chapter 7 52
 Summary
• Subquery–placing an inner query (SELECT
statement) inside an outer query
– Noncorrelated subqueries:
• Do not depend on data from the outer query
– Correlated subqueries:
• Make use of data from the outer query
• Query optimization is important when data
volume increases

Chapter 7 53