Databases

STRUCTURED QUERY LANGUAGE

 Quick Recap of SQL

 SQL stands for Structured Query Language.

 SQL is used to communicate with a database.
 It is the standard language for relational database management systems.
 SQL statements are used to perform tasks such as update data on a database, or retrieve data from a database.
 Some common relational database management systems that use SQL are:
 Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, Access, Ingres, etc.
 Although most database systems use SQL, most of them also have their own additional proprietary extensions
that are usually only used on their system.
 However, the standard SQL commands such as "Select", "Insert", "Update", "Delete", "Create", and
"Drop" can be used to accomplish almost everything that one needs to do with a database.
 We have seen what lies in front of forms and reports and table. So what is syntax is behind these forms
and reports?
 A bit More SQL

 Some examples
 General syntax
 Joins in more detail
 More examples
 Summary
 SQL Example 1

 Consider this example Access made for us a while back:

SELECT Wines.Name, Wines.[White/Red/Rose], Wines.Type, Wines.Price
FROM Wines
WHERE (((Wines.Price)<200))
ORDER BY Wines.Name;
 What does this actually do?
 SELECT – chooses specific fields
 FROM says from which table
 WHERE selects for particular criteria
 ORDER BY sorts as you request
 SQL Example 2

 What does this example do?

SELECT Stock.Description, [InStock]*[CostPrice]
AS [Inventory Value]
FROM Stock
ORDER BY Stock.Description;
 The keyword “AS” allows us to give a name to the new field
 Called an alias
 Convenient for creating a new name without changing the table design
 “Inventory Value” is a calculated field
 SQL Example 3

 Here is another that Access created for us:

SELECT Wines.Name, Wines.Type, Wines.[White/Red/Rose], Wineries.Name, Wineries.
[Telephone Number]
FROM Wineries
INNER JOIN Wines ON Wineries.[Winery Code] = Wines.Winery
WHERE (((Wines.[White/Red/Rose]) Like“White"))
ORDER BY Wines.Name;
 What’s new here?
 INNER JOIN – combines rows from two tables
 Here, Wineries and Wines
 Only including those that match a given condition
 Here, Wineries.[Winery Code] = Wines.Winery
 Joins

 Create a new table (possibly just for a query or report) by combining 2 or more other tables
 Needs a relation (linking primary and foreign keys) in most interesting cases
 The more you normalize, the more joins you need
 In DB query design, the order of joins can make a big difference to time taken for a query
 Types of Join

 SQL CROSS JOIN produces a result set which is the number of rows
in the first table multiplied by the number of rows in the second table
 If no WHERE clause is used along with CROSS JOIN.
 This kind of result is called as Cartesian Product.
 If WHERE clause is used with CROSS JOIN, it functions like an INNER
JOIN.
 Cross join – Create a table with every combination of two given tables
e.g.
SELECT *
SELECT *
FROM Wineries CROSS JOIN Wines; FROM table1
 This would create a huge table with a row for every possible combination CROSS JOIN table2;
of winery and wine (here, “*” means all fields)
 SQL Inner Join

 SQL INNER JOIN selects all rows from both participating tables as
long as there is a match between the columns.
 The INNER JOIN in SQL joins two tables according to the matching
of a certain criteria using a comparison operator
 An SQL INNER JOIN is same as JOIN clause, combining rows from
two or more tables.
 Similar to a cross join except it only keeps rows where a key
matches between the two tables
SELECT *
FROM Wineries INNER JOIN Wines SELECT *
FROM table1 INNER JOIN table2
ON Wineries.[Winery Code] = Wines.Winery; ON table1.column_name = table2.column_name;
 SQL Left Outer Join or Left Join

 The SQL LEFT JOIN (specified with the keywords LEFT

JOIN and ON) joins two tables and fetches all matching rows of
two tables for which the SQL-expression is true
 plus rows from the first table that do not match any row in the
second table.
 SQL LEFT join fetches a complete set of records from table1,
with the matching records (depending on the availability) in
table2. SELECT *
FROM table1
 The result is NULL in the right side when no matching will take LEFT [ OUTER ] JOIN table2
place ON table1.column_name=table2.column_name;
 SQL Right Outer Join or Right Join

 The SQL RIGHT JOIN, joins two tables and fetches rows based
on a condition, which is matching in both the tables
 before and after the JOIN clause mentioned in the syntax below
 The unmatched rows will also be available from the table written
after the JOIN clause ( mentioned in the syntax below ).
 SQL RIGHT join fetches a complete set of records from
table2, i.e. the rightmost table after JOIN clause, with the
matching records (depending on the availability) in table1.
 SELECT *
The result is NULL in the left side when no matching will take place.
FROM table1
RIGHT [ OUTER ] JOIN table2
ON table1.column_name=table2.column_name;
What Types of Join does Access Support?
 More on SELECT

 Several forms of SELECT including:-

 Only selecting specific fields
 Selecting fields dependent on a condition
 Various kinds of join
 Option of ordering (sorting)
 General Notation

 Table names and field names:-

 If the table is not obvious: TableName.FieldName
 If the field name could be confused with other constructs enclose in [ ] Wines.Type – no
confusion over what the field name is Wineries.[Telephone Number] – field name
contains a space so use [ ]
 SQL statements end in semicolon:

;
 More SQL

 Other SQL statements include:-

 Creating tables
 Removing tables from a DB
 Modifying an existing table
 Dropping a DB
 There is whole lot more than we can cover in this Introductory course
 MS Access can generate SQL for you
 More sophisticated tools require you create your own
 A Few More Examples

 When you create a query or report in Access, you can inspect the SQL
 Useful for learning SQL and creating your own examples
 You can edit the generated SQL
 Can be quicker and easier than using the user interface
 A few more examples to illustrate what you can do
 Further Examples (1)

 What if we want to see what the total profit is per item in a store database?
SELECT Stock.Description, ([InStock]*([SellingPrice]- [CostPrice])) AS [Total Profits]
FROM Stock
ORDER BY Stock.Description;
 What does this do?
 To calculate using fields we put the field name in square brackets
 The AS keyword gives a name to the calculated field
 It is the result of a query, not stored as a field in the DB
 Further Examples (2)

 What if we want to see what the profit is per item in the store database?
SELECT Stock.Description, [SellingPrice]-­[CostPrice] AS [Profit per item]
FROM Stock
ORDER BY [SellingPrice]-[CostPrice];
 What does this add that’s new?
 We can sort by a calculated value
 Further Examples (3)

 What if we want to ask the user which supplier’s stock they want to see?
SELECT Stock.ItemId, Stock.Description, Stock.InStock
FROM Suppliers
INNER JOIN Stock ON Suppliers.SCode = Stock.SupplierCode
WHERE (((Suppliers.SName)=[please enter supplier’s name]));
 What does this add that’s new?
 The text in the last square brackets is not a field name so it is interpreted as a question and so the user is prompted for a value
 The result of the query will only be the fields selected where the supplier name matches what the user types in
 What you Need to Know?

 Access can sometimes be more aggressive than it needs to be in wrapping field names in [ ]
 it isn’t wrong to do this so use this if not sure
 Table names can also be enclosed in [ ] if necessary but this is not needed in most of our examples
 SQL is a huge language with variations on different platforms:
 Do not try to memorize all the details
 Know the basic syntaxes of SQL and what each of the key operative words do
 SELECT, FROM, WHERE, JOINS, ORDER BY
 Be able to read a given example
 Use it to construct a similar example with small differences
 For example change this to sort the result by cost price:
SELECT Stock.Description, [InStock]*[CostPrice] AS [Inventory Value]
FROM Stock
ORDER BY Stock.Description;
 SQL Summary

 SQL is a powerful language:-

 Can construct queries, new tables, manage a DB at all levels
 We only touched the surface
 MS Access can create SQL for you but more powerful tools may require you create your own
 Another popular database engine: MySQL
 Free, supported by many users and companies
 Widely used in Internet services
 LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP
 Linux: a free operating system
 Apache: a free web server
 MySQL: a free database engine
 PHP: a popular programming language for web apps