Practical relational language:

Advanced SQL
 Outline
•  Handling NULL values
•  Nested Queries
•  JOIN Operation
•  Aggregate Functions
•  Grouping
Handling Null Value
•  When a NULL value is involved in comparison, the result is UNKNOWN
•  Three-valued logic
Handling Null Value
•  Generally, in SQL and relational algebra
–  ONLY the tuples evaluate to TRUE in the where
clause are selected.
•  Exception: outer joins

–  Each individual NULL considered to be different

from every other NULL
•  Exception: select distinct, group by, sort by, union, intersection,
set difference.
Handling Null Value
R S
A B C D E C
a 1 NULL b NULL NULL
b NULL NULL c 1 NULL
c 1 2

Q1: SELECT * Q3: R*S

FROM R
WHERE B<2; Q4: R∪S

Q2: SELECT C
Q5: R∩S
FROM R;
 Handling Null Value
•  Check whether an attribute value is NULL in SQL?

IS and IS NOT

•  Q7: Select the names of employees who do not have supervisors

SELECT Fname, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Super_ssn IS NULL;

•  What if we use WHERE Super_ssn = NULL?

 Nested Queries
(another query within the WHERE clause)
IN: compare a value v with a set (multiset) V
–  TRUE if v in set V
•  Q8: Select employees who works for the ‘Research’
department
Inner query
SELECT Ssn, Fname, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dno IN ( SELECT Dnumber
Outer query FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dname = ‘Research’);
Dnumber
5
Nested Queries
•  IN
-  IN can be used in the explicit way

SELECT Ssn, Fname, Lname

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dno IN (1, 4 );
Nested Queries
•  OR
–  Q9: Select all projects that involve an employee with last name‘Smith’
either as a worker or as a manager of the controlling department
SELECT DISTINCT Pnumber
FROM PROJECT
WHERE
Pnumber IN ( SELECT Pnumber
FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dnum = Dnumber AND Mgr_ssn = Ssn
AND Lname = ‘Smith’)

OR
Pnumber IN ( SELECT Pno
FROM WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Essn = Ssn AND Lname = ‘Smith’);
Nested Queries
•  ALL,SOME(ANY)
–  =SOME(or =ANY) is equivalent to the keyword IN
-  Q10: Return the names of employees whose salary is greater than
the salary of all the employees in department 5
SELECT Lname, Fname
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Salary > ALL ( SELECT Salary
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dno = 5);
Nested Queries
•  Correlated Nested Queries
–  WHERE clause of a nested query references some attribute(s)
of a relation in the outer query
-  Q11: Return the name of each employee who has a dependent with
the same first name and sex as the employee.

SELECT E.Lname, E.Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE E.Ssn IN ( SELECT Essn
FROM DEPENDENT AS D
WHERE E.Fname = D.Dependent_name
AND E.Sex = D.Sex);
Nested Queries
•  A query written with nested select-from-where blocks
and using the = or IN comparison can be expressed as a
single block query.
–  The previous example can be written as

SELECT E.Lname, E.Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE AS E, DEPENDENT AS D
WHERE E.Ssn = D.Essn
AND E.Fname = D.Dependent_name
AND E.Sex = D.Sex;
EXISTS and NOT EXISTS
•  EXISTS
–  Check whether the result is empty or not
–  Opposite: NOT EXISTS
–  Typically used in conjunction with a correlated nested query

•  Q12: Retrieve the names of employees who have no

dependents.

SELECT Lname, Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE Ssn = Essn);
EXISTS and NOT EXISTS
•  Q13: Retrieve the names of managers who have at least
one dependent

SELECT Lname, Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE Ssn = Essn)
AND
EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE Ssn = Mgr_ssn);
EXISTS and NOT EXISTS
•  EXCEPT
-  Q14: Retrieve the name of each employee who works
on all the projects controlled by department 5

SELECT Lname, Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS ( ( SELECT Distinct Pnumber
FROM PROJECT
WHERE Dnum = 5)
EXCEPT( SELECT Distinct Pno
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE Ssn = Essn) );
JOIN operations in SQL
•  Joined table
–  Permits to specify a table resulting from a join operation in the FROM clause
–  Q15: Retrieve the name and address of every employee who works for the
‘Research’ department.

SELECT Lname, Fname, Address

FROM (EMPLOYEE JOIN DEPARTMENT ON Dno=Dnumber)
WHERE Dname = ‘Research’;

SELECT Lname, Fname, Address

FROM (EMPLOYEE NATURAL JOIN
(DEPARTMENT AS DEPT(Dname, Dno, Mssn, Msdate) ))
WHERE Dname = ‘Research’;
JOIN operations in SQL
•  Multi-way join
-  Q16: For every project located in ‘Stafford’, list the project number,
the controlling dept number, and the dept manager’s last name, and
birthday.

SELECT Pnumber, Dnum, Lname, Bdate

FROM (
(PROJECT JOIN DEPARTMENT ON Dnum=Dnumber)
JOIN EMPLOYEE ON Mgr_ssn=Ssn
)
WHERE Plocation = ‘Stafford’;
Regard the result of JOIN as a temporary table
JOIN operations in SQL
OUTER JOIN
EMPLOYEE
OFFICE
Name ID
Office_
Jim 1001 ID room
John 1002 1001 T2/3A
Jack 1003 1002 T2/5A

SELECT E.Name, O.Office_room

FROM (
EMPLOYEE AS E LEFT OUTER JOIN
OFFICE AS O ON E.ID=O.ID
);
JOIN operations in SQL
Q17: For every employee, retrieve the last name and his or her
supervisor’s last name

SELECT E.Lname AS Employee_name, S.Lname AS

Supervisor_name
FROM (
(EMPLOYEE AS E LEFT OUTER JOIN EMPLOYEE
AS S ON E.Super_ssn=S.Ssn
);
Aggregate Functions in SQL
•  Used to summarize information from multiple tuples
•  Built-in aggregate functions
–  COUNT, SUM, MAX, MIN, and AVG
–  NULL values are discarded when aggregate functions
are applied to a particular column

SELECT SUM (Salary), MAX (Salary), MIN (Salary), AVG (Salary)

FROM EMPLOYEE;

–  SUM/MAX/MIN/AVG(empty)=NULL,
COUNT(empty)=0
 Aggregate Functions in SQL
Q18: Retrieve the total number of employees in the
company.

SELECT COUNT (*)

FROM EMPLOYEE; Q19: Retrieve the total number of
employees in the ‘Research’ department.
SELECT COUNT (*)
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dno=Dnumber AND Dname= ‘Research’;

Q20:
SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT Dlocation)
FROM DEPT_LOCATIONS;
Aggregate Functions in SQL
•  Q21: Retrieve the names of employees who
have two or more dependents.
SELECT E.Lname, E.Fname
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE ( SELECT COUNT (*)
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE E.Ssn = Essn ) >= 2;

Is this correlated nested query?

Grouping in SQL
•  Partition relation into subsets of tuples
–  Based on grouping attribute(s)
–  Apply function to each such group independently
•  GROUP BY clause
–  Specifies grouping attributes
•  HAVING clause
–  Conjunction with GROUP BY
–  Provides a condition
–  Only the groups satisfy the having conditions will be selected.
•  If NULLs exist in grouping attribute
–  Separate group created for all tuples with a NULL value in grouping
attribute.
 -  Q22: For each department, retrieve the department number, the
number of employees, and the average salary

SELECT Dno, COUNT (*), AVG (Salary)

FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY Dno;
Q23: For each project on which more than two employees
work, retrieve the project number, project name, and the
number of people working on it.

SELECT Pnumber, Pname, COUNT (*)

FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Pnumber=Pno
GROUP BY Pnumber, Pname
HAVING COUNT (*) > 2;
Summary of SQL Queries
SELECT <attribute and function list>
FROM <table list>
[ WHERE <condition> ]
[ GROUP BY <grouping attribute(s)> ]
[ HAVING <group condition> ]
[ ORDER BY <attribute list> ] ;
Schema Change Statements in SQL
•  Delete schema, table, domain or constraint
–  DROP
•  Options: CASCADE or RESTRICT(default)

DROP SCHEMA COMPANY CASCADE;

DROP SCHEMA COMPANY RESTRICT;

RESTRICT: the schema is dropped only if it has no elements in it.

Schema Change Statements in SQL
•  Delete table

DROP TABLE DEPENDENT CASCADE;

DROP TABLE DEPENDENT RESTRICT;

RESTRICT: a table is dropped only if it is not referenced in any constraints or

by any other elements.
Schema Change Statements in SQL
•  Alter table actions include:
–  ALTER
– Adding or dropping a column (attribute)
ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE ADD COLUMN Job VARCHAR(12);

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE

ADD COLUMN Type VARCHAR(12) NOT NULL

DEFAULT ‘Temporary’

CHECK (Type IN (‘Temporary’, ‘Permanent’));

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE DROP COLUMN Address CASCADE;

Schema Change Statements in SQL
•  Alter table actions include:
– Changing a column definition

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE ALTER COLUMN Mgr_ssn

DROP DEFAULT;

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE ALTER COLUMN Mgr_ssn

SET DEFAULT ‘333445555’;

Schema Change Statements in SQL
•  Alter table actions include:
– Adding/dropping table constraints

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE ADD CONSTRAINT FKDN

FOREIGN KEY (Dno) REFERENCE
DEPARTMENT(Dnumber);

ALTER TABLE EMPLOYEE DROP CONSTRAINT

FKDN;
 Reading Assignment
•  Chapter 5.1