Null Values

 It is possible for tuples to have a null value for some of their

attributes
 The predicate ‘is null’ can be used to check for null values.
 E.g. Find all loan number which appear in the loan relation with
null values for amount.
select loan-number
from loan
where amount is null
 The result of any arithmetic expression involving null is null
 E.g. 5 + null returns null

Database System Concepts 4.1 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Null Values and Three Valued Logic
 Any comparison with null returns unknown
 E.g. 5 < null or null <> null or null = null
 Three-valued logic using the truth value unknown
 OR: (unknown or true) = true
(unknown or false) = unknown
(unknown or unknown) = unknown
 AND: (true and unknown) = unknown
(false and unknown) = false
(unknown and unknown) = unknown
 NOT: (not unknown) = unknown
 “P is unknown”
If predicate P evaluates to unknown  true
 where clause predicate
 If evaluates to unknown  false

Database System Concepts 4.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Null Values and Aggregates
 Total all loan amounts

select sum (amount)

from loan
 Above statement ignores null amounts
 Result is null  If there is no non-null amount
 All aggregate operations except count(*) ignore tuples with null
values on the aggregated attributes.
 The count of an empty collection is defined to be 0. All other
aggregates return null value.

Database System Concepts 4.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Nested Subqueries
 SQL provides a mechanism for the nesting of subqueries.
 A subquery is a select-from-where expression that is nested
within another query.
 A common use of subqueries is to perform tests for
 Set membership
 Set comparisons
 Set cardinality

Database System Concepts 4.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Set Membership
 Find all customers who have both an account and a loan at the
bank.
select distinct customer-name
from borrower
where customer-name in (select customer-name
from depositor)
 Find all customers who have a loan at the bank but do not have
an account at the bank
select distinct customer-name
from borrower
where customer-name not in (select customer-name
from depositor)

Database System Concepts 4.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Membership in Arbitrary Relation
 Find all customers who have both an account and a loan at the
Perryridge branch
select distinct customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number and
branch-name = “Perryridge” and
(branch-name, customer-name) in
(select branch-name, customer-name
from depositor, account
where depositor.account-number =
account.account-number)
 in and not in can used on enumerate sets.
 Find all customers who have a loan at the bank, and whose names
are neither Smith nor Jones
select distinct customer-name
from borrower
where customer-name not in (‘Smith’, ‘Jones’)

Database System Concepts 4.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Set Comparison
 Find all branches that have greater assets than some branch
located in Brooklyn.
select distinct T.branch-name
from branch as T, branch as S
where T.assets > S.assets and
S.branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’
  using ‘> some’ clause

select branch-name
from branch
where assets > some
(select assets
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’)

Database System Concepts 4.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Definition of Some Clause
 F <comp> some r t r s.t. (F <comp> t)
where <comp> can be <, <=, >=, =, <>

0 0
(5< some 5 ) = true (5< some ) = false
5
6
0 (5 <> some
0
(5 = some ) = true ) = true
5 5

 ‘= some’ is identical to in
 ‘<> some’ is not the same as not in

Database System Concepts 4.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Definition of All Clause

 F <comp> all r t r (F <comp> t)

0 6
(5< all 5 ) = false (5< all ) = true
10
6
4 4
(5 = all ) = false (5  all ) = true
5 6

 ‘<> all’ is identical to not in

Database System Concepts 4.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Example Query
 Find the names of all branches that have greater assets than all
branches located in Brooklyn.
select branch-name
from branch
where assets > all
(select assets
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’)

Database System Concepts 4.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Test for Empty Relations
 The exists construct returns the value true if the argument
subquery is nonempty.
 exists r  r  Ø
 not exists r  r = Ø
 Find all customers who have both an account and a loan at the
bank
select customer-name
from borrower
where exists (select *
from depositor
where depositor.customer-name =
borrower.customer-name)

Database System Concepts 4.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Example Query
 Find all customers who have an account at all branches located
in Brooklyn.
select distinct S.customer-name
from depositor as S
where not exists (
(select branch-name
from branch
where branch-city = ‘Brooklyn’)
except
(select R.branch-name
from depositor as T, account as R
where T.account-number = R.account-number and
S.customer-name = T.customer-name))

Database System Concepts 4.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Test for Absence of Duplicate Tuples
 The unique construct tests whether a subquery has any
duplicate tuples in its result.

Database System Concepts 4.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Example Query
 Find all customers who have at most one account at the Perryridge
branch.
select T.customer-name
from depositor as T
where unique (
select R.customer-name
from account, depositor as R
where T.customer-name = R.customer-name and
R.account-number = account.account-number and
account.branch-name = ‘Perryridge’)
 Find all customers who have at least two accounts at the Perryridge
branch.
select distinct T.customer-name
from depositor T
where not unique (
select R.customer-name
from account, depositor as R
where T.customer-name = R.customer-name and
R.account-number = account.account-number and
account.branch-name = ‘Perryridge’)
Database System Concepts 4.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Views
 Provide a mechanism to hide certain data from the view of
certain users.
 To create a view:

create view v as <query expression>

where
 <query expression> : any legal expression
 v : view name
 To delete a view:

drop view v

Database System Concepts 4.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Example Query
 A view consisting of branches and their customers
create view all-customer as
(select branch-name, customer-name
from depositor, account
where depositor.account-number = account.account-number)
union
(select branch-name, customer-name
from borrower, loan
where borrower.loan-number = loan.loan-number)

 Find all customers of the Perryridge branch

select customer-name
from all-customer
where branch-name = ‘Perryridge’

Database System Concepts 4.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Complex Queries
 Two ways of composing multiple SQL blocks to express a
complex query:
 derived relations
 with clause

Database System Concepts 4.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Derived Relations
 SQL allows a subquery expression to be used in the from clause
 Find the average account balance of those branches where the
average account balance is greater than $1200.
select branch-name, avg-balance
from (select branch-name, avg (balance)
from account
group by branch-name)
as result (branch-name, avg-balance)
where avg-balance > 1200

Database System Concepts 4.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 With Clause
 with clause allows views to be defined locally to a query, rather
than globally.
 Find all accounts with the maximum balance
with max-balance(value) as
select max(balance)
from account
select account-number
from account, max-balance
where account.balance = max-balance.value

Database System Concepts 4.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Example Query
 Find all branches where the total account deposit is greater than
the average of the total account deposits at all branches

with branch-total (branch-name, value) as

select branch-name, sum (balance)
from account
group by branch-name
with branch-total-avg(value) as
select avg (value)
from branch-total
select branch-name
from branch-total, branch-total-avg
where branch-total.value >= branch-total-avg.value

Database System Concepts 4.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan