Database Programming with SQL

1-2
Relational Database Technology

Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Objectives

This lesson covers the following objectives:

• Define and give an example of a relational database
• Identify table-key terms, including row, column, field, primary
key, and foreign key
• Relate the importance of databases to everyday life

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Purpose

• Databases are part of our everyday lives even though most of

the time we don't even think about them.
• If you have ever made an airline reservation, used an ATM
machine, or made a mobile-phone call, you've used a
database.
• In fact, many cities use intelligent traffic guiding system
databases to control stoplights.
• So the next time you're waiting at a red light, it may be a
database that is responsible for your delay!
• In this lesson, you will learn more about databases and how
they're organized and created.
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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Relational Databases

• A relational database allows tables to be related by means of

a common field.
• As few as two tables can be considered a relational database
if they share a common field.

COUNTRY_ID COUNTRY_NAME REGION_ID

CA Canada 2
DE Germany 1
UK United Kingdom 1
US United States of America 2

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Relational Database Technology
Relational Databases

• Realistically, databases used in business have many tables,

each table sharing a common field with another table.
• The "countries" table shown is one of several tables in the
Employees database and just one example of the many tables
that will be used in this course.
COUNTRY_ID COUNTRY_NAME REGION_ID
CA Canada 2
DE Germany 1
UK United Kingdom 1
US United States of America 2

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Relational Database Technology
Relational Databases

• To understand how important databases have become in

today's world, consider the following statistics:
– Currently 20% of the world's data resides in RDBMSs.
– In the next two years, databases are expected to grow larger
than 100 terabytes.
– A database this big would be able to store 100,000 copies of the
Encyclopedia Britannica or 200,000 hours of music or about 10
billion web pages.

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Relational Databases

• Some of the top 10 world's largest databases using the Oracle

RDBMS are:
– France Telecom, 29.2TB -- a communications company (a TB is a
terabyte equivalent to 1,000 gigabytes)
– Amazon.com with, 13 TB -- selling books and merchandise
– The Claria Corporation,12TB -- Internet behavioral marketing
company tracking Internet user behavior

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Review Key Terms

• Let's review the following key terms:

– table -- basic storage structure
– column -- one kind of data in a table
– row -- data for one table instance
– field -- the one value found at the intersection of a row and a
column
– primary key -- unique identifier for each row
– foreign key -- column that refers to a primary-key column in
another table

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Properties of Tables

• There are six properties of tables in a relational database:

– Property 1: Entries in columns are single-valued
– Property 2: Entries in columns are of the same kind
– Property 3: Each row is unique
– Property 4: Sequence of columns is insignificant
– Property 5: Sequence of rows is insignificant
– Property 6: Each column has a unique name

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Accessing Data in an RDBMS

• A relational database-management system (RDBMS)

organizes data into related rows and columns.
• To access the data in a database, you do not need to know
where the data is located physically, nor do you need to
specify an access route to the tables.
• You simply use structured query language (SQL) statements
and operators.

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Communicating with Databases

• Working with the database is very similar to calling up and

talking to a friend on the phone.
– First, you must choose a method to communicate (the phone).
– Once connected, you ask your friend a question (a query).
– In response to your question, your friend answers (return of
data).
• Pretty simple, and most of us are experts at this.
• In this class, our method of communication with the database
will be through Oracle Application Express.
• When you ask a question using SQL, the application will
return an answer.
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Relational Database Technology
Communicating With Databases

• As shown in the diagram, communicating with an RDBMS is

accomplished by entering a SQL statement in Oracle
Application Express.
SQL statement is entered. Statement is sent to the Oracle Server.
SELECT department_name
FROM departments;

Oracle
server

Data is returned from the Oracle Server.

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Communicating With Databases

• The request is then sent to the Oracle Server (a database

running on a computer), the request is processed and the
data returned is displayed.
SQL statement is entered. Statement is sent to the Oracle Server.
SELECT department_name
FROM departments;

Oracle
server

Data is returned from the Oracle Server.

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Communicating With Databases

• In very large database systems, many users, servers, and

tables make up the RDBMS.

SQL statement is entered. Statement is sent to the Oracle Server.

SELECT department_name
FROM departments;

Oracle
server

Data is returned from the Oracle Server.

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Categories of SQL Statements

• SQL statements are grouped into several categories

depending on the functions they perform.
• During this course, you will learn how to use SQL to execute
these statements.
• The data retrieval statement retrieves data from the database
using the keyword SELECT.

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Relational Database Technology
Categories of SQL Statements

• There are four main categories of SQL statements:

– Data manipulation language (DML)
– Data definition language (DDL)
– Transaction control language (TCL)
– Data control language (DCL)

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Relational Database Technology
Categories of SQL Statements

• Data manipulation language (DML)

– DML statements begin with INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or MERGE
and are used to modify the table data by entering new rows,
changing existing rows, or removing existing rows.
• Data definition language (DDL)
– DDL statements create, change, and remove data structures
from the database.
– The keywords CREATE, ALTER, DROP, RENAME, and TRUNCATE
begin DDL statements.

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Relational Database Technology
Categories of SQL Statements

• Transaction control language (TCL)

– TCL statements are used to manage the changes made by DML
statements.
– Changes to the data are executed using COMMIT, ROLLBACK, and
SAVEPOINT.
– TCL changes can be grouped together into logical transactions.
• Data control language (DCL)
– DCL keywords GRANT and REVOKE are used to give or remove
access rights to the database and the structures within it.

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Relational Database Technology
Terminology

Key terms used in this lesson included:

• Data control language (DCL)
• Data definition language (DDL)
• Data manipulation language (DML)
• Field
• Foreign key
• RDBMS

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Terminology

Key terms used in this lesson included:

• Primary key
• Relational database
• Row
• Table
• Transaction control (TCL)

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology
Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to:

• Define and give an example of a relational database
• Identify table-key terms, including row, column, field, primary
key, and foreign key
• Relate the importance of databases to everyday life

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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Relational Database Technology