Chapter 5: Advanced SQ

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Outline

 Accessing SQL From a Programming Language

 Functions and Procedures
 Triggers

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Accessing SQL from a Programming Language

 A database programmer must have access to a general-purpose

programming language for at least two reasons
 Not all queries can be expressed in SQL, since SQL does not
provide the full expressive power of a general-purpose
language.
 Non-declarative actions -- such as printing a report, interacting
with a user, or sending the results of a query to a graphical user
interface -- cannot be done from within SQL.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 SQL from a Programming Language (Cont.)

 There are two approaches to accessing SQL from a general-purpose

programming language
 A general-purpose program -- can connect to and communicate
with a database server using a collection of functions
 Embedded SQL -- provides a means by which a program can
interact with a database server.
 The SQL statements are translated at compile time into
function calls.
 At runtime, these function calls connect to the database using
an API that provides dynamic SQL facilities.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 General Purpose Programs

 There are two standards for connecting to an SQL database and

performing queries and updates.
 JDBC is an application program interface for the Java language
 ODBC is an application program interface originally developed for
the C language, and subsequently extended to other languages
such as C++, C#, Ruby, Go, PHP, and Visual Basic.
 We do not cover these in class. JDBC is a reading assignment and
will be part of Homework 2.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Embedded SQL
 Embedded SQL

 The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety of

programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Fortran, and PL/1.
 A language to which SQL queries are embedded is referred to as a
host language, and the SQL structures permitted in the host language
comprise embedded SQL.
 The basic form of these languages follows that of the System R
embedding of SQL into PL/1.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL -- Basic Idea

 Specify in the host language the designated SQL server (say X)

 In the host language define a regular SQL query (say Y)
 In the host language instruct server X to execute query Y
 Server X executes the query and stores the result in a
temporary table
 In the host language instruct the SQL server to move the
temporary table (or part of it) to a location in the host language

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL Basic Language Structures

 The statement EXEC SQL is used in the host language to identify the
embedded SQL request to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded statement>;
Note: this varies by language:
 In some languages, like COBOL, the semicolon is replaced with
END-EXEC
 In Java embedding uses # SQL { …. };
 Before executing any SQL statements, the program must first connect
to the database. This is done using:
EXEC-SQL connect to server user user-name using password;
The, server identifies the database server to which a connection is to be
established.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 To write an embedded SQL query, we use the

declare c cursor for <SQL query>
statement. The variable c is used to identify the query
 Example:
 From within a host language, find the ID and name of students who
have completed more than the number of credits stored in the
variable credit_amount in the host langue
 Specify the query in SQL as follows:
EXEC SQL
declare c cursor for
select ID, name
from student
where tot_cred > :credit_amount
END_EXEC

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 To execute a query “c”, the open statement must be used, which

causes the database system to execute the query and to save the
results within a temporary relation
 For our example, we use:
EXEC SQL open c ;
The query uses the value of the host-language variable credit-amount
at the time the open statement is executed.
 The fetch statement causes the values of one tuple in the query result
to be placed on host language variables.
EXEC SQL fetch c into :si, :sn END_EXEC

To get all the relevant tuples, one must issue repeated calls to fetch to
get successive tuples in the query result

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 A variable called SQLSTATE in the SQL communication area (SQLCA)

is set to '02000' to indicate no more data is available
 The close statement causes the database system to delete the
temporary relation that holds the result of the query.
EXEC SQL close c ;
Note: above details vary with language. For example, the Java
embedding defines Java iterators to step through result tuples.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Updates Through Embedded SQL

 Embedded SQL expressions for database modification (update, insert,

and delete)
 Can update tuples fetched by cursor by declaring that the cursor is for
update
EXEC SQL
declare c cursor for
select *
from instructor
where dept_name = 'Music'
for update
 We then iterate through the tuples by performing fetch operations on the
cursor (as illustrated earlier), and after fetching each tuple we execute the
following code:
update instructor
set salary = salary + 1000
where current of c

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Embedded SQL Query

 Query: “Find all students whose ID is a prime number”

 We have an SQL table Students with an ID attribute
 How can we print only IDs which are primes using Python?

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Embedded SQL Query (Cont.)

 Initially fetch all student IDs from the database:

 `students` is now a list containing names and IDs.

 Write isPrime(x) function. Simple implementation in Python:

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Embedded SQL Query (Cont.)

 Finally, run isPrime(x) for all IDs

 Print student names who have prime IDs:

 Question: How could we achieve better performance if we know

the largest ID?

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Functions and Procedures
 Functions and Procedures

 Functions and procedures allow “business logic” to be stored in the

database and executed from SQL statements.
 These can be defined either by the procedural component of SQL or
by an external programming language such as Java, C, or C++.
 The syntax we present here is defined by the SQL standard.
 Most databases implement nonstandard versions of this syntax.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Declaring SQL Functions

 Using PostgreSQL, define a function that, given the name of a department,

returns the count of the number of instructors in that department.
create function dept_count (dept_name varchar(20))
returns integer as $$
declare d_count integer;
begin
select count (* ) into d_count
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name = dept_name
return d_count;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
 The function dept_count can be used to find the department names and
budget of all departments with more that 12 instructors.
select dept_name, budget
from department
where dept_count (dept_name ) > 12

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Declaring SQL Functions in PostgreSQL

create function outer_function()

returns void as $BODY_OUT$
begin
raise notice ‘Outer function called’;
execute $BODY_IN$
create or replace function inner_function()
returns text as $$
begin
return ‘Inner function called’;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
$BODY_IN$;
raise notice ‘%’, inner_function();
end;
$BODY_OUT$ language plpgsql;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 PostgreSQL “Create or Replace” function

 In PostgreSQL, it is a common practice to use create or replace instead of

create when defining a function.
• Functions can easily be updated without being dropped.
• Permissions are maintained after function replacement.
• Errors are avoided when redefining existing function.
• Version control is provided.
 It is recommended to use create when a function is going to be defined
only once.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Table Functions

 The SQL standard supports functions that can return tables as results
 Such functions are called table functions
 Syntax:
create function <name> (…)
returns table (
Attribute 1
Attribute 2
…
) as $$
return query
SQL query
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
 Note that there is a difference between returns and returns

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Table Functions Example

Return all instructors in a given department

 Function declaration:
create function instructor_of (dept_name char(20))
returns table (
ID varchar(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2)) as $$
begin
return query
(select ID, name, dept_name, salary
from instructor
where instructor.dept_name =
instructor_of.dept_name)
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
 Function usage
select *
from instructor_of ('Music’);
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Language Constructs (Cont.)

 For loop
 Permits iteration over all results of a query
 record is a placeholder data type for different sets of columns
during loop iteration
 Example: Find the total budget of all departments

declare
n integer default 0;
r record;
begin
for r in
select budget from department
where dept_name = 'Music'
loop
n := n + r.budget
end loop;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 External Language Routines

 SQL allows us to define functions in a programming language such as

Java, C#, C or C++.
 Can be more efficient than functions defined in SQL, and
computations that cannot be carried out in SQL can be executed by
these functions.
 Declaring external language procedures and functions

create procedure dept_count_proc (dept_name varchar(20),

out count integer)
language C
as '/usr/avi/bin/dept_count_proc’, ‘dept_count_proc’;

create function dept_count(dept_name varchar(20))

returns integer
language C
as '/usr/avi/bin/dept_count’, ’dept_count’;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Security with External Language Routines

 To deal with security problems, we can do on of the following:

 Use sandbox techniques
 That is, use a safe language like Java, which cannot be used to
access/damage other parts of the database code.
 Run external language functions/procedures in a separate process,
with no access to the database process’ memory.
 Parameters and results communicated via inter-process
communication
 Both have performance overheads
 Many database systems support both above approaches as well as direct
executing in database system address space.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Triggers
 Triggers

 A trigger is a statement that is executed automatically by the system

as a side effect of a modification to the database.
 To design a trigger mechanism, we must:
 Specify the conditions under which the trigger is to be executed.
 Specify the actions to be taken when the trigger executes.
 Triggers introduced to SQL standard in SQL:1999 but supported even
earlier using non-standard syntax by most databases.
 Syntax illustrated here may not work exactly on your database
system; check the system manuals

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Trigger to Maintain credits_earned value

 create trigger credits_earned after update of takes on (grade)

referencing new row as nrow
referencing old row as orow
for each row
when nrow.grade <> 'F' and nrow.grade is not null
and (orow.grade = 'F' or orow.grade is null)
begin atomic
update student
set tot_cred = tot_cred +
(select credits
from course
where course.course_id= nrow.course_id)
where student.id = nrow.id;
end;

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Statement Level Triggers

 Instead of executing a separate action for each affected row, a

single action can be executed for all rows affected by a transaction
 Use for each statement
 instead of for each row
 Use referencing old table or referencing new table
 To refer to temporary tables (called transition tables)
containing the affected rows
 Can be more efficient when dealing with SQL statements that
update a large number of rows

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 When Not To Use Triggers

 Triggers were used earlier for tasks such as

 Maintaining summary data (e.g., total salary of each department)
 Replicating databases by recording changes to special relations
(called change or delta relations) and having a separate process that
applies the changes over to a replica
 There are better ways of doing these now:
 Databases today provide built in materialized view facilities to
maintain summary data
 Databases provide built-in support for replication
 Encapsulation facilities can be used instead of triggers in many cases
 Define methods to update fields
 Carry out actions as part of the update methods instead of
through a trigger

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 When Not To Use Triggers (Cont.)

 Risk of unintended execution of triggers, for example, when

 Loading data from a backup copy
 Replicating updates at a remote site
 Trigger execution can be disabled before such actions.
 Other risks with triggers:
 Error leading to failure of critical transactions that set off
the trigger
 Cascading execution

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Risks of Triggers

 Risk of unintended execution of triggers, for example, when

 Loading data from a backup copy
 Replicating updates at a remote site
 Trigger execution can be disabled before such actions.
 Other risks with triggers:
 Error leading to failure of critical transactions that set off
the trigger
 Cascading execution

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter 5

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
JDBC
 JDBC
 JDBC is a Java API for communicating with database systems
supporting SQL.
 JDBC supports a variety of features for querying and updating data,
and for retrieving query results.
 JDBC also supports metadata retrieval, such as querying about
relations present in the database and the names and types of relation
attributes.
 Model for communicating with the database:
 Open a connection
 Create a “statement” object
 Execute queries using the statement object to send queries and
fetch results
 Exception mechanism to handle errors

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 JDBC Code

public static void JDBCexample(String dbid, String userid, String passwd)

{
try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:oracle:thin:@db.yale.edu:2000:univdb", userid, passwd);
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
)
{
… Do Actual Work ….
}
catch (SQLException sqle) {
System.out.println("SQLException : " + sqle);
}
}

NOTE: Above syntax works with Java 7, and JDBC 4 onwards.

Resources opened in “try (….)” syntax (“try with resources”) are
automatically closed at the end of the try block

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 JDBC Subsections

 Connecting to the Database

 Shipping SQL Statements to the Database System
 Exceptions and Resource Management
 Retrieving the Result of a Query
 Prepared Statements
 Callable Statements
 Metadata Features
 Other Features
 Database Access from Python

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 JDBC Resources

 JDBC Basics Tutorial

• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/index.html

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 SQLJ
 JDBC is overly dynamic, errors cannot be caught by compiler
 SQLJ: embedded SQL in Java
 #sql iterator deptInfoIter ( String dept name, int avgSal);
deptInfoIter iter = null;
#sql iter = { select dept_name, avg(salary) from instructor
group by dept name };
while (iter.next()) {
String deptName = iter.dept_name();
int avgSal = iter.avgSal();
System.out.println(deptName + " " + avgSal);
}
iter.close();

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
ODBC
 ODBC

 Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) standard

 Standard for application program to communicate with a database
server.
 Application program interface (API) to
 Open a connection with a database,
 Send queries and updates,
 Get back results.
 Applications such as GUI, spreadsheets, etc. can use ODBC

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL

 The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety of

programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Fortran, and PL/1.
 A language to which SQL queries are embedded is referred to as a
host language, and the SQL structures permitted in the host language
comprise embedded SQL.
 The basic form of these languages follows that of the System R
embedding of SQL into PL/1.
 The statement EXEC SQL is used in the host language to identify
embedded SQL request to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded statement>;
Note: this varies by language:
 In some languages, like COBOL, the semicolon is replaced with
END-EXEC
 In Java embedding uses # SQL { …. };

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL

 The SQL standard defines embeddings of SQL in a variety of

programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Fortran, and PL/1.
 A language to which SQL queries are embedded is referred to as a
host language, and the SQL structures permitted in the host language
comprise embedded SQL.
 The basic form of these languages follows that of the System R
embedding of SQL into PL/1.
 The statement EXEC SQL is used in the host language to identify
embedded SQL request to the preprocessor
EXEC SQL <embedded statement>;
Note: this varies by language:
 In some languages, like COBOL, the semicolon is replaced with
END-EXEC
 In Java embedding uses # SQL { …. };

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Embedded SQL (Cont.)

 Variables of the host language can be used within embedded SQL

statements. They are preceded by a colon (:) to distinguish from SQL
variables (e.g., :credit_amount )
 Variables used (as above) must be declared within DECLARE section.
The syntax for declaring the variables, however, follows the usual host
language syntax.
EXEC-SQL BEGIN DECLARE SECTION
int credit-amount ;
EXEC-SQL END DECLARE SECTION;
 To write an embedded SQL query, we use the
declare c cursor for <SQL query>
statement. The variable c is used to identify the query

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 5.52 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan