About SQL SQL stands for Structured Query Language.

SQL is a language that enables you to work with a database. Using SQL, you can insert records, update records, and delete records. You can also create new database objects such as databases and tables. And you can drop (delete) them. More advanced features include creating stored procedures (self contained scripts), views (pre-made queries), and setting permissions on database objects (such as tables, stored procedures, and views). Although SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard, there are many different versions of SQL. Different database vendors have their own variations of the language. Having said this, to be in compliance with the ANSI standard, they need to at least support the major commands such as DELETE, INSERT, UPDATE, WHERE etc. Also, you will find that many vendors have their own extensions to the language - features that are only supported in their database system. Furthermore, transact-SQL is an extension to the ANSI standard and provides extra functionality. Using SQL If you need to build a website with a database providing the content, you will generally need the following:

A server side scripting language (i.e. ColdFusion, PHP, ASP/.NET) A database query language (i.e. SQL) A client side markup language and style sheets (i.e. HTML/CSS)

Although SQL can be quite involved, you can achieve a lot with a handful of SQL statements. When using SQL on a website, you will often find yourself either selecting a record, inserting a record, updating a record, or deleting a record. Fortunately, SQL has commands for performing each of these actions.

The next lesson covers the SQL syntax basics. The SQL syntax is quite an easy one to grasp. Most of the actions you need to perform are done with a SQL statement. Generally, a SQL statement begins by stating what to do (for example, "SELECT"), then states which object to do it to (for example, using the "FROM" clause). SELECT * FROM Individual It may also have a condition added to the end (for example, with a WHERE clause). SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' SQL is not case sensitive - the above examples could just have easily used all lowercase or all uppercase. Different programmers have their own preferences. For readability purposes, many SQL programmers prefer to use uppercase for SQL commands and lowercase for everything else. The SQL syntax allows you to include line breaks at logical points without it breaking the statement. For example, the above example could have been written all on one line - or across 4 lines. Also, some database systems require that you use a semicolon at the end of each SQL statement (although this tutorial doesn't use the semicolon). DML & DDL SQL is divided into two main categories; Data Manipulation Language (DML), and Data Definition Language (DDL). An explanation follows. Data Manipulation Language (DML) DML enables you to work with the data that goes into the database. DML is used to insert, select, update, and delete records in the database. Many of your SQL statements will begin with one of the following commands:

SELECT - Retrieves data from the database INSERT - Inserts new data into the database UPDATE - Updates existing data in the database DELETE - Deletes existing data from the database

Data Definition Language (DDL) You may also occasionally need to create or drop a table or other datbase object. SQL enables you to do this programatically using DDL. Examples of DDL commands:

CREATE DATABASE - Creates a new database ALTER DATABASE - Modifies the database DROP DATABASE - Drops (deletes) a database CREATE TABLE - Creates a new table ALTER TABLE - Modifies the table DROP TABLE - Drops (deletes) a table

These are just some of the object classes that can be defined using DDL. As you can probably guess, the syntax is generally the same for any object, although, each object will have properties specific to that object class. As you can see, the SQL syntax is quite simple. It is also very powerful syntax - you can do a lot of damage with one line of code! The SELECT statement is probably the most commonly used in SQL. It simply retrieves data from the database. Lets have a look at a simple SELECT statement: SELECT * FROM Individual This SQL SELECT statement is attempting to retrieve all columns from a table called Individual. How do we know it is trying to select all columns? Because it is using an asterisk (*). This is a quick way of selecting all columns it's much easier than writing out the names of all columns (especially if there are a lot of columns).

Of course, this SQL SELECT statement assumes that there is a table called Individual. If there wasn't, an error would be generated. Lets have a look at the table the statement is trying to select data from: IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Because our select statement asks to display all columns and all records, we would see the following: IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 5 Homer Gain noplacelike Select from Multiple Tables You can select from more than one table at a time. To do this, simply separate each table with a comma. You should also qualify any references to columns by placing the table name in front, separated by a dot. We have another table called Occupation, which contains the individual's occupation. OccupationId IndividualId JobTitle 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Engineer Accountant Cleaner Attorney Sales

Executive SQL statement We will select from both the Individual table and the Occupation table. We will qualify any column names by prefixing them with its table's name and a dot. SELECT * FROM Individual, Occupation WHERE Individual.FirstName = 'Homer' Result Individu FirstNa LastNa alId me me 1 Homer Simpso n 2 Homer Brown 3 Homer Gain UserNa Occupatio Individu JobTitl me nId alId e homey 2 2 Account ant notsofam 3 3 Cleaner ous noplaceli 5 5 Sales ke Executi ve

Displaying Less Columns If you don't need every column to be displayed you can single out just the columns you're interested in. It's good programming practice to do this - the more columns your program has to return, the more it will impact its performance. To only display those columns you're interested in, simply replace the asterisk (*) with a comma separated list of the column names. SQL statement SELECT IndividualId, LastName, UserName FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' Result IndividualId 2 3 5 LastName Simpson Brown Gain UserName homey notsofamous noplacelike

In the previous lesson, we used a SQL SELECT statement to retrieve all records from a database table. This is fine if we want to see every record, but what if we were only interested in some records? For example, what if we were only interested in individuals whose first name is "Homer"? We could use the WHERE clause. Using the WHERE clause, you can filter out only those records that satisfy a given condition. Actually, in the previous lesson we did use a WHERE clause when we selected records from multiple tables. Here's a closer look at the WHERE clause. SQL WHERE Syntax SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name = 'criteria' Example SQL WHERE Statement SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Result Given there are 3 people with the first name of "Homer", the results will look like this:
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous

Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer

Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain

freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Homer

Gain

noplacelike

Multiple Conditions You can filter records based on more than one condition using operators. Two common operators are the AND and OR operators. AND Operator The AND operator filters the query to only those records that satisfy both the first condition and the second condition. SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' AND LastName = 'Brown' Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 3 Homer Brown notsofamous OR Operator The OR operator filters the query to only those records that satisfy either one or the other condition. SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE FirstName = 'Homer' OR LastName = 'Ozzbourne' Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath Using a SQL SELECT statement can retreive many hundreds or even thousands of records. In some cases you might find it useful to sort the records by a given column. For example, when selecting records from the Individual table, you might like to sort them by the LastName column.

SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 2 Homer Simpson homey Descending Order By default, ORDER BY sorts the column in ascending order - that is, from lowest values to highest values. You could also explicitly state this using the ASC keyword, but it's not necessary. If you want highest values to appear first, you can use the DESC keyword. SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName DESC

Result

IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 3 Homer Brown notsofamous Sorting By Multiple Columns You can sort by multiple columns by stating each column in the ORDER BY clause, separating each column name with a comma. SQL will first order the results by the first column, then the second, and so on for as many columns that are included in the ORDER BY clause. SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual ORDER BY FirstName, LastName Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 2 Homer Simpson homey 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath In the preceeding lessons on the SELECT statement, the examples have returned all records that have matched our SELECT criteria. This is great if you want to look at every record, but, what if you only want to look at the first few records? Sounds like you need the SQL TOP clause. The TOP clause allows us to specify how many rows to return. This can be useful on very large tables when there are thousands of records. Returning thousands of records can impact on performance, and if you are working with a production database, this could have an adverse impact on the users.

Note: The SQL TOP clause is Transact-SQL, and not part of ANSI SQL. Therefore, depending on your database system, you may not be able to use this clause. SQL statement SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Individual Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

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Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous Specifying a Percentage You have the option of specifying a percentage of the result set instead of an absolute value. You do this with the PERCENT keyword. SQL statement SELECT TOP 40 PERCENT * FROM Individual Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey SQL TOP and the ORDER BY clause If you are using the TOP clause along with the ORDER BY clause, the TOP clause is applied to the ordered result set.

Therefore, if we add an ORDER BY to the above query, we end up with something like this: SQL statement SELECT TOP 40 PERCENT * FROM Individual ORDER BY LastName DESC Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 2 Homer Simpson homey 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath Once a table starts getting a lot of data in it, some columns will contain duplicate values. For example, many Individuals share first names and surnames. Most of the time this isn't a problem. But sometimes you will want to find out how many unique values there are in a table. To do this you can use the DISTINCT keyword. SQL statement SELECT DISTINCT(FirstName) FROM Individual Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Result Using the DISTINCT keyword, all customers with a name of "Homer" are counted as one. FirstName Fred Homer Ozzy Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

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The SQL IN operator assists you in providing multiple values in your WHERE clause. This can provide very useful when you need to compare your value to a list of values. Often this list could be the result of a query from another table. SQL Syntax SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name IN (value1,value2,...) Example SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE LastName IN ('Simpson','Ozzbourne','Flinstone') Source Table Id FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred 2 Homer 3 Homer 4 Ozzy 5 Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath You might have noticed that this returns the same result as the following SQL statement: SELECT * FROM Individual WHERE LastName = 'Simpson' OR LastName = 'Ozzbourne' OR LastName = 'Flinstone' Yes, we could just have easily used that statement but the SQL IN statement is more concise.

SQL IN and Subqueries Now, where the SQL IN operator becomes really useful is when you need to compare a value against the result of another query. For example, lets say we have another table called "Publisher". This table contains users who are allowed to contribute to the website via an administration console. All users in the Publisher table are also in the Individual table, but not all users in the Individual table are in the Publisher table. Source Tables Individual Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Publisher Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor

Our task is to return a list of usernames from all publishers who have an access level of "Contributor". You may notice that the usernames are in the Individual table but the access level is stored in the Publisher table. Also, there could potentially be many contributors. This is a good candidate for the SQL IN operator!

SQL statement SELECT UserName FROM Individual WHERE IndividualId IN (SELECT IndividualId FROM Publisher WHERE AccessLevel = 'Contributor') Result UserName homey notsofamous sabbath In this example there aren't many records in the Publisher table, but imagine if there were thousands - the IN statement is great for this sort of thing. In SQL, an alias is a name that you give a table. This can make it easier to work with table names - especially when they are long. You could name the alias anything, but usually you'd make it short. You may be thinking "a table already has a name, why give it another one?". Well, there are some good reasons for creating an alias. The main reasons are:

Queries can sometimes get very long. Aliases can make your query easier to read. You may find yourself referencing the same table name over and over again - this will occur if you're working with multiple tables and you need to refer to columns from those tables. It can be annoying to have to write the whole name all the time - especially if it's a long one. You may need to work with multiple instances of the same table, for example, a self join. If you're not familiar with joins, they are covered later in this tutorial.

As mentioned, an alias could be anything. For example, if you have a table called Individual you could give it an alias of i. Another table called IndividualProductPurchase could have an alias of, say, ipp

Alias Syntax SELECT * FROM table_name AS alias_name Example SQL Statement SELECT o.JobTitle FROM Individual AS i, Occupation AS o WHERE i.FirstName = 'Homer' ORDER BY o.JobTitle The SQL JOIN refers to using the JOIN keyword in a SQL statement in order to query data from two tables. When you perform a SQL join, you specify one column from each table to join on. These two columns contain data that is shared across both tables. You can use multiple joins in the same SQL statement to query data from as many tables as you like. Join Types Depending on your requirements, you can do an "inner" join or an "outer" join. These are different in a subtle way

INNER JOIN: This will only return rows when there is at least one row in both tables that match the join condition. LEFT OUTER JOIN (or LEFT JOIN): This will return rows that have data in the left table (left of the JOIN keyword), even if there's no matching rows in the right table. RIGHT OUTER JOIN (or RIGHT JOIN): This will return rows that have data in the right table (right of the JOIN keyword), even if there's no matching rows in the left table. FULL OUTER JOIN (or FULL JOIN): This will return all rows, as long as there's matching data in one of the tables.

Join Syntax Inner Join: SELECT * FROM table_name1 INNER JOIN table_name2 ON table_name1.column_name = table_name2.column_name Left Join: SELECT * FROM table_name1 LEFT JOIN table_name2

ON table_name1.column_name = table_name2.column_name Right Join: SELECT * FROM table_name1 RIGHT JOIN table_name2 ON table_name1.column_name = table_name2.column_name Full Join: SELECT * FROM table_name1 FULL JOIN table_name2 ON table_name1.column_name = table_name2.column_name Example Inner Join Statement SELECT * FROM Individual INNER JOIN Publisher ON Individual.IndividualId = Publisher.IndividualId Note: We could use table aliases instead of the full table name. This will keep our statement shorter. For example: SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind INNER JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId The next few lessons cover each type of join and show examples of usage. As discussed in the previous lesson, you should use the SQL INNER JOIN when you only want to return records where there is at least one row in both tables that match the join condition. Example SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual INNER JOIN Publisher ON Individual.IndividualId = Publisher.IndividualId WHERE Individual.IndividualId = '2'

Source Tables Left Table Id FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred 2 Homer 3 Homer 4 Ozzy 5 Homer Right Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 10 AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

Result Individual FirstNam LastNam UserNam Individual AccessLev Id e e e Id el 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor Next lesson covers the SQL OUTER JOIN. This lesson covers both the left outer join, the right outer join, and the full outer join, and explains the differences between them. There are some occasions where you would need to use a left outer join or a right outer join, and others where you would need a full outer join. The join type you use will depend on the situation and what data you need to return. Left Outer Join Use this when you only want to return rows that have matching data in the left table, even if there's no matching rows in the right table.

Example SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind LEFT JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId Source Tables Left Table Id FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred 2 Homer 3 Homer 4 Ozzy 5 Homer Right Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 10 Result Individual FirstNa Id me 1 Fred 2 3 4 5 Homer Homer Ozzy Homer AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

LastNa UserNam Individual AccessLev me e Id el Flinstone freddo 1 Administrat or Simpson homey 2 Contributor Brown notsofamo 3 Contributor us Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor Gain noplacelike NULL NULL

Right Outer Join Use this when you only want to return rows that have matching data in the right table, even if there's no matching rows in the left table. Example SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind RIGHT JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId Source Tables Left Table Id FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred 2 Homer 3 Homer 4 Ozzy 5 Homer Right Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 10
Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 Administrator 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 Contributor 4 Ozzy Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor NULL NULL NULL NULL 10 Administrator

Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain

freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator

Full Outer Join Use this when you want to all rows, even if there's no matching rows in the right table. Example SQL statement SELECT * FROM Individual AS Ind FULL JOIN Publisher AS Pub ON Ind.IndividualId = Pub.IndividualId Source Tables Left Table Id FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred 2 Homer 3 Homer 4 Ozzy 5 Homer Right Table IndividualId 1 2 3 4 10 Result
IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName IndividualId AccessLevel 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 1 Administrator 2 Homer Simpson homey 2 Contributor 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 3 Contributor 4 Ozzy Osbourne sabbath 4 Contributor 5 Homer Gain noplacelike NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL 10 Administrator

Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain

freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

AccessLevel Administrator Contributor Contributor Contributor Administrator

Up until now, this tutorial has covered the SELECT statement and variations on it. We are now about to learn a new statement - the INSERT statement. The SQL INSERT command allows you to insert a record into a table in your database. As with the SELECT syntax, the INSERT syntax is quite straight forward. SQL statement INSERT INTO Individual VALUES ( '6', 'Benny', 'Hill', 'hillbenny' ) Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 Result Now if we do a SELECT on the Individual table, we can see the new record added to the bottom of the result set. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 5 Homer Gain noplacelike 6 Benny Hill hillbenny See - nothing to it! Now, it's important to note that the INSERT statement is used only when you want to add a new record to the table. If you want to update an existing record, use an UPDATE statement. The UPDATE command is described in the next lesson. Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike

Ozzbourne sabbath

The SQL UPDATE statement allows you to update an existing record in the database. The UPDATE command uses a WHERE clause. If you don't use a WHERE clause, all rows will be updated. In fact, the syntax for a basic UPDATE statement is very similar to a SELECT statement. SQL statement UPDATE Individual SET UserName = 'funnyman' WHERE IndividualId = '6' Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Result Now if we select this record, we can see the updated value. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 6 Benny Hill funnyman Updating Multiple Fields To update multiple fields, separate each field assignment with a comma. SQL statement UPDATE Individual SET UserName = 'getserious', FirstName = 'Onetree' WHERE IndividualId = '6' Result IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 6 Onetree Hill getserious Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Benny Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain Hill freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike hillbenny

Ozzbourne sabbath

Next lesson covers the DELETE statement. The SQL DELETE statement allows you to delete a record from the database. The DELETE command uses a WHERE clause. If you don't use a WHERE clause, all rows in the table will be deleted. Again, as with the UPDATE statement, the syntax for a basic DELETE statement is similar to a SELECT statement. SQL statement DELETE FROM Individual WHERE IndividualId = '6' Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Result Now if we select all records from the table, we see that record 6 has been deleted. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 Fred Flinstone freddo 2 Homer Simpson homey 3 Homer Brown notsofamous 4 Ozzy Ozzbourne sabbath 5 Homer Gain noplacelike SQL has a number of functions to assist you in your database programming. Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Benny Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain Hill freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike funnyman

Ozzbourne sabbath

Functions are a self contained script/program built for a specific purpose. Generally, the value returned by a function will depend on the context in which it is being used. Often, a SQL function will be used within a query and this is what provides it with it's context. Transact-SQL provides 3 different types of functions: Rowset Functions Aggregate Functions These return an object that can be used in place of a table reference in a SQL statement Perform a calculation on a set of values and return a single value. Aggregate functions can be used in the following:

The select list of a SELECT statement A COMPUTE or COMPUTE BY clause

Scalar Functions

A HAVING clause These return a single value from a single value. Scalar functions are categorized as follows:

Configuration Functions Cursor Functions Date and Time Functions Mathematical Functions Metadata Functions Security Functions String Functions System Functions System Statistical Functions Text and Image Functions

On top of these functions, different database vendors have their own built-in functions for their products. Also, most products enable programmers to program their own User Defined Functions. For information on proprietary functions, you should consult the vendor's documentation. In the next lesson you will learn about one of the more commonly used SQL functions - the COUNT function.

A commonly used aggregate function in SQL is COUNT. COUNT returns the number of rows that match the given criteria. COUNT(*) If we only want to see how many records are in a table (but not actually view those records), we could use COUNT(*). COUNT(*) returns everything - including null values and duplicates. SQL statement SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Individual Source Table IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName 1 2 3 4 5 6 Result 6 COUNT(column name) If we want to see how many non-null values are in a given column, we use COUNT(column name) where column name is the name of the column we want to test. SQL statement SELECT COUNT(LastName) FROM Individual
Source Table Id FirstName 1 2 3 4 5 Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer LastName Flinstone Simpson Brown Ozzbourne Gain UserName freddo homey notsofamous sabbath noplacelike

Fred Homer Homer Ozzy Homer Bono

Flinstone Simpson Brown Gain

freddo homey notsofamous noplacelike u2

Ozzbourne sabbath

Bono

u2

Result 5 Combining COUNT & DISTINCT If we only want to see how many unique names are in the table, we could nest the DISTINCT inside a COUNT function. SQL statement SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(FirstName)) FROM Individual Result 4 Most database systems provide a way for you to create database objects via a WYSIWYG interface. For example, Microsoft's SQL Server has Enterprise Manager. The Enterprise Manager gives you a kind of graphical representation of your database system. You can browse through your databases, view the tables and their contents etc. Despite having a tool like Enterprise Manager to make these tasks easier, there can be good reasons for wanting to perform some of these tasks programatically. Possible reasons could include:

Your application allows users to create objects on the fly. You have multiple environments (for example development, staging, production). It's much easier, and less error prone, to run a script against 3 environments than to open up Enterprise Manager and repeat the steps in 3 environments - especially if you have lots of changes. You don't have access to Enterprise Manager (or your database system's equivalent).

Fortunately, SQL has a number of CREATE commands that enable you to programatically create database objects including the database, its tables and more.

Here are the CREATE commands supported by SQL Server:

CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE CREATE

ACTION CACHE CELL CALCULATION CUBE DATABASE DEFAULT FUNCTION INDEX MEMBER MINING MODEL PROCEDURE RULE SCHEMA SET STATISTICS TABLE TRIGGER UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX VIEW

We're not going to cover all these here but, over the next few lessons, we'll cover some of the most common CREATE commands. You can create a database using the CREATE DATABASE command. SQL syntax CREATE DATABASE database_name Example Code This statement creates a database called "Payroll". Because no arguments have been specified, the database data files and transaction logs will be created automatically in the default location. CREATE DATABASE Payroll Adding Arguments
There are a number of optional arguments that you can supply with the CREATE DATABASE command. You should check your database system's documentation for the specific arguments supported and their usage, but

here's an example of supplying arguments when creating a database using Microsoft's SQL Server.

Example Code In this example, we are supplying the name and location of the database's data file and transaction log. We are also specifying the initial size of these files (with the SIZE argument), the maximum size it can grow to (with the MAXSIZE argument) and the growth increment of each file (using the FILEGROWTH) argument. USE master GO CREATE DATABASE Payroll ON ( NAME = Payroll_dat, FILENAME = 'c:\program files\microsoft sql server\mssql\data\payrolldat.mdf', SIZE = 20MB, MAXSIZE = 70MB, FILEGROWTH = 5MB ) LOG ON ( NAME = 'Payroll_log', FILENAME = 'c:\program files\microsoft sql server\mssql\data\payroll.ldf', SIZE = 10MB, MAXSIZE = 40MB, FILEGROWTH = 5MB ) GO Next up is the CREATE TABLE command. You create a table using the CREATE TABLE command. SQL syntax CREATE TABLE table_name (column_name_1 datatype, column_name_2 datatype, ...
) Example

CREATE TABLE Individual (IndividualId int, FirstName Varchar(255),

LastName Varchar(255), UserName Char(10) ) Result This results in an empty table. You can now use an INSERT statement to add data to the table. IndividualId FirstName LastName UserName

Data Types You'll notice we explicitly stated the data type in our CREATE TABLE statement. This is because, when you create a column, you need to tell the database what type of data it can hold. The exact data types and how they are expressed differs with each database system and vendor, but you'll find that generally, there will be support for fixed length strings (eg char), variable length strings (eg varchar), date/time values (eg datetime), numbers and integers (eg, bigint, int, smallint, tinyint, numeric). The following base data types are available in SQL Server 2000. bigint datetime money tinyint Binary Decimal Nchar bit float ntext char image nvarchar uniqueidentifier cursor int real timestamp

smalldatetime Smallint

smallmoney text

Varbinary Varchar

You may need to consult your database system's documentation if you're unsure of which data type to use or how it is expressed in that system. Next, we learn how to create an index for our table with the CREATE INDEX command. Indexes can be created against a table to make searches more efficient. A database index is similar to an index of a book - a book

index allows you to find information without having to read through the whole book. A database index enables the database application to find data quickly without having to scan the whole table. Indexes can have a slight impact on performance so you should only create indexes against tables and columns that will be frequently searched against. For example, if users of your application often search against the LastName field then that field is a great candidate for an index. You create an index using the CREATE INDEX command. SQL syntax CREATE INDEX index_name ON table_name (column_name) Example CREATE INDEX IndividualIndex ON Individual (LastName) SQL Alter Table In an earlier lesson, we created a table with the CREATE TABLE command. In this lesson, we will modify the table using the ALTER TABLE command. Add a Column SQL syntax ALTER TABLE table_name ADD column_name datatype Example SQL Statement ALTER TABLE Individual ADD age int Change the Datatype SQL syntax ALTER TABLE table_name ALTER COLUMN column_name datatype

Example SQL Statement ALTER TABLE Individual ALTER COLUMN age numeric Drop a Column 'Dropping' a column means removing or deleting that column. SQL syntax ALTER TABLE table_name DROP COLUMN column_name Example SQL Statement ALTER TABLE Individual DROP COLUMN age Congratulations - you've reached the end! This SQL tutorial has provided you with a quick and easy way to learn SQL. We began by learning that SQL stands for Structured Query Language, and is an ANSI standard. We then learned the basic SQL syntax, before continuing on to the SELECT statement - probably the most commonly used statement. We learned that there are various keywords and aggregate functions that can be included into SQL statements such as WHERE, COUNT, DISTINCT etc. These are all part of the DML (Data Manipulation Language). Then, after covering the INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements, we learned that there are various commands for performing administration tasks against a database. For example, there are commands for creating database objects (CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE etc), and there are commands for modifying (or altering) database objects (ALTER DATABASE, ALTER TABLE etc). These commands are part of the DDL (Data Definition Language). Where to Next?

If you're keen to get into SQL programming, you should download a database management system (if you haven't already) and practice SQL statements against it. You should also read your database system's documentation for any proprietary commands, functions or features. For example, does your database system have an automatic scheduler? Are you able to link your database server to a database on another server? How do you perform backups on your database system? And lastly, if you're new to web development, check out one of the other tutorials on Quackit - for example, the HTML Tutorial, the CSS Tutorial, or the JavaScript Tutorial.