Database Management System [18CS:
Module 3
Chapter 1: SQL- Advances Queries
1.1 More Complex SQL Retrieval Queries
Additional features allow users to specify more complex retrievals from database
4.1.1 Comparisons Involving NULL and Three-Valued Logic
SQL has various rules for dealing with NULL values. NULL is used to represent a missing value, but
that it usually has one of three different interpretations—value
Example
1. Unknown value. A person's date of bith is not known, so it is represented by NULL in the
database.
2. Unavailable or withheld value. A person has a home phone but does not want it to be
listed, so itis withheld and represented as NULL in the database.
3. Not applicable attribute. An attribute CollegeDegree would be NULL for a person who has no
college degrees because it does not apply to that person.
Each individual NULL value is considered to be different from every other NULL value in the various
database records. When a NULL is involved in a comparison operation, the result is considered to
be UNKNOWN (it may be TRUE or it may be FALSE). Hence, SQL uses a three-valued logic with
values TRUE, FALSE, and UNKNOWN instead of the standard two-valued (Boolean) logic with
values TRUE or FALSE. tis therefore necessary to define the results (or truth values) of three-
valued logical expressions when the logical connectives AND, OR, and NOT are used
Table 5_Losicel Conn
vee: Valued Logie
@ AND TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN
“TRE Ss TRUE=—~—~C«~SALSE===S*C«NKNQWNN
FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
UNKNOWN UNKNOWN FALSE UNKNOWN
cy on TRUE FALSE UNKNOWN
a rn CTT TRUE TRUE
FALSE, TRUE FALSE, UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN TRUE UNKNOWN UNKNOWN
© not
“TRUE —C«|CALSED
FALSE, TRUE
UNKNOWN UNKNOWN
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‘The rows and columns represent the values of the results of comparison conditions, which would
typically appear in the WHERE clause of an SQL query.
In select-project-join queries, the general rule is that only those combinations of tuples that evaluate
the logical expression in the WHERE clause of the query to TRUE are selected. Tuple combinations
that evaluate to FALSE or UNKNOWN are not selected.
SQL allows queries that check whether an attribute value is NULL using the comparison operators
1S or IS NOT.
Example: Retrieve the names of all employees who do not have supervisors.
SELECT Frame, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Super_ssn IS NULL;
1.1.2 Nested Queries, Tuples, and Set/Multiset Comparisons
Some queries require that existing values in the database be fetched and then used in a
‘comparison condition. Such queries can be conveniently formulated by using nested queries,
which are complete select-from-where blocks within the WHERE clause of another query. That
other query is called the outer query
Examplet: List the project numbers of projects that have an employee with last name ‘Smith’ as
manager
SELECT DISTINCT Poumber FROM PROJECT WHERE
Pnumber IN
(SELECT Prumber FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dnum=Dnumber AND Mgt_ssn=Ssn AND Lname='smith’);
Example2: List the project numbers of projects that have an employee with last name ‘Smith’ as
either manager or as worker.
SELECT DISTINCT Prumber FROM PROJECT WHERE
Pnumber IN
(SELECT Phumber FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dnum=Dnumber AND Mgr_ssn=Ssn AND Lname='smith’)
oR
Prumber IN
(SELECT Pno FROM WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE WHERE Essn=Ssn AND
Lname='smith’);
We make use of comparison operator IN, which compares a value v with a set (or multiset) of
values V and evaluates to TRUE if vis one of the elements in V.
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‘The first nested query selects the project numbers of projects that have an employee with last name
“Smith’ involved as manager. The second nested query selects the project numbers of projects that
have an employee with last name ‘Smith’ involved as worker. In the outer query, we use the OR
logical connective to retrieve a PROJECT tuple if the PNUMBER value of that tuple is in the result
of either nested query.
SQL allows the use of tuples of values in comparisons by placing them within parentheses. For
‘example, the following query will select the Essns of all employees who work the same (project
hours) combination on some project that employee “John Smith’ (whose Ssn = 123456789") works
on
SELECT DISTINCT Essn
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE (Pro, Hours) IN( SELECT Pro, Hours
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE — Essn='123456789" js
In this example, the IN operator compares the subtuple of values in parentheses (Pno,Hours) within
‘each tuple in WORKS_ON with the set of type-compatible tuples produced by the nested query.
Nested Queries::Comparison Operators
Other comparison operators can be used to compare a single value v to a set or multiset V. The =
ANY (or = SOME) operator returns TRUE if the value v is equal to some value in the set V and is
hence equivalent to IN. The two keywords ANY and SOME have the same effect. The keyword ALL
‘can also be combined with each of these operators. For example, the comparison condition (v >
ALL V) returns TRUE if the value v is greater than all the values in the set (or multiset) V. For
‘example is the following query, which retums the names of employees whose salary is greater than
the salary of all the employees in department 5
SELECT Lname, Frame
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Salary > ALL ( SELECT Salary
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dno=5 );
In general, we can have several levels of nested queries. We can once again be faced with possible
ambiguity among attribute names if attributes of the same name exist—one in a relation in the
FROM clause of the outer query, and another in a relation in the FROM clause of the nested query.
The rule is that a reference to an unqualified attribute refers to the relation declared in the
innermost nested query.
To avoid potential errors and ambiguities, create tuple variables (aliases) for all tables referenced in
SQL query
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Example: Retrieve the name of each employee who has a dependent with the same first name and
is the same sex as the employee
SELECT E.Fname, E.Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE E.Ssn IN ( SELECT Essn
FROM DEPENDENT AS D
WHERE E.Frame=D.Dependent_name
AND E.Sex=D.Sex );
In the above nested query, we must qualify E.Sex because it refers to the Sex attribute of
EMPLOYEE from the outer query, and DEPENDENT also has an attribute called Sex.
1.1.3 Correlated Nested Queries
Whenever a condition in the WHERE clause of a nested query references some attribute of a
relation declared in the outer query, the two queries are said to be correlated,
Example:
SELECT E.Fname, E.Lname
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 );
The nested query is evaluated once for each tuple (or combination of tuples) in the outer query. we
‘can think of query in above example as follows: For each EMPLOYEE tuple, evaluate the nested
‘query, which retrieves the Essn values for all DEPENDENT tuples with the same sex and name as
that EMPLOYEE tuple; if the Ssn value of the EMPLOYEE tuple is in the result of the nested query,
then select that EMPLOYEE tuple.
1.1.4 The EXISTS and UNIQUE Functions in SQL
EXISTS Functions
‘The EXISTS function in SQL is used to check whether the result of a correlated nested query is
emply (contains no tuples) or not. The result of EXISTS is @ Boolean value
+ TRUE if the nested query result contains at least one tuple, or
+ FALSE if the nested query result contains no tuples.
For example, the query to retrieve the name of each employee who has a dependent with the same
first name and is the same sex as the employee can be written using EXISTS functions as follows:
SELECT E.Fname, E.Lname
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FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT AS D
WHERE E.Ssn=D.Essn AND E.Sex=D.Sex
AND E.Fname=D.Dependent_name);
Example: List the names of managers who have at least one dependent
SELECT Frame, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE,
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE Ssn=Essn )
AND
EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE Ssn=Mgr_ssn );
In general, EXISTS(Q) retums TRUE if there is at least one tuple in the result of the nested query Q,
and it returns FALSE otherwise.
NOT EXISTS Functions
NOT EXISTS(Q) returns TRUE if there are no tuples in the result of nested query Q, and it returns
FALSE otherwise.
Example: Retrieve the names of employees who have no dependents.
SELECT Fname, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE Ssn=Essn )
For each EMPLOYEE tuple, the correlated nested query selects all DEPENDENT tuples whose
Essn value matches the EMPLOYEE Ssn; if the result is empty, no dependents are related to the
‘employee, so we select that EMPLOYEE tuple and retrieve its Frame and Lname.
Example: Retrieve the name of each employee who works on all the projects controlled
by department number 5
SELECT Frame, Lname
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FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS ( ( SELECT Phumber
FROM PROJECT
WHERE Dnum=5)
EXCEPT ( SELECT Pno
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE Ssn=Essn) );
UNIQUE Functions
UNIQUE(Q) retums TRUE if there are no duplicate tuples in the result of query Q; otherwise, it
retums FALSE. This can be used to test whether the result of a nested query is a set or a multiset
1.1.5 Explicit Sets and Renaming of Attributes in SQL
IN SQL it is possible to use an explicit set of values in the WHERE clause, rather than a nested
query. Such a set is enclosed in parentheses.
Example: Retrieve the Social Security numbers of all employees who work on project numbers 1, 2,
or.
SELECT DISTINCT Essn
FROM WORKS_ON
WHERE Pro IN (1, 2, 3);
In SQL, it is possible to rename any attribute that appears in the result of a query by adding the
qualifier AS followed by the desired new name
Example: Retrieve the last name of each employee and his or her supervisor
SELECT E.Lname AS Employee_name,
S.Lname AS Supervisor_name
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E,
EMPLOYEE AS S
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1.1.6 Joined Tables in SQL and Outer Joins
‘An SQL join clause combines records from two or more tables in a database. It creates a set that
can be saved as a table or used as is. A JOIN is a means for combining fields from two tables by
Using values common to each. SQL specifies four types of JOIN
1. INNER,
2. OUTER
3. EQUNOIN and
4, NATURAL JOIN
INNER JOIN
‘An inner join is the most common join operation used in applications and can be regarded as the
default join-type. Inner join creates a new result table by combining column values of two tables (A,
‘and B) based upon the join- predicate (the condition). The result of the join can be defined as the
‘outcome of first taking the Cartesian product (or Cross join) of all records in the tables (combining
every record in table A with every record in table B)—then return all records which satisfy the join
predicate
Example: SELECT * FROM employee
INNER JOIN department ON
employee dno = department. dnumber,
EQUIJOIN and NATURAL JOIN
An EQUIJOIN is a specific type of comparator-based join that uses only equality comparisons in the
join-predicate. Using other comparison operators (such as <) disqualifies a join as an equijoin.
NATURAL JOIN is a type of EQUIJOIN where the join predicate arises implicitly by comparing all
‘columns in both tables that have the same column-names in the joined tables. The resulting joined
table contains only one column for each pair of equally named columns
SELECT — Fname, Lname, Address
FROM EMPLOYEE|NATURAL JOIN
DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dname="Research 5
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If the names of the join attributes are not the same in the base relations, itis possible to rename the
attributes so that they match, and then to apply NATURAL JOIN. In this case, the AS construct can
be used to rename a relation and all its attributes in the FROM clause.
CROSS JOIN retums the Cartesian product of rows from tables in the join. In other words, it will
produce rows which combine each row from the first table with each row from the second table.
OUTER JOIN
‘An outer join does not require each record in the two joined tables to have a matching record. The
joined table retains each record-even if no other matching record exists. Outer joins subdivide
further into
+ Left outer joins
+ Right outer joins
+ Full outer joins
No implicit join-notation for outer joins exists in standard SQL.
>» LEFT OUTER JOIN
» Every tuple in left table must appear in result
» If no matching tuple
Padded with NULL values for attributes of right table
QBA: SELECT —ELname AS Employee_name, S.Lname AS Supervisor_name | Sewing: he hae,
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E, EMPLOYEE ASS ak on PLOTEE mp
WHERE — ESupor_ssn=8.Sen: rae ae we eS
1 ewer ogre tall
Q8B: SELECT — E.Lname AS Employee_name, Gtr vont becet
S.Lname AS Supervisor_name _L##*#t
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E|LEFT OUTER JOINJEMPLOYEE AS S
[ONJE.Super_ssn=S.Ssn)3
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>» RIGHT OUTER JOIN
> Every tuple in right table must appear in result
» Ifno matching tuple
Padded with NULL values for the attributes of left table
» FULL OUTER JOIN
» a full outer join combines the effect of applying both left and right outer
joins.
» Where records in the FULL OUTER JOINed tables do not match, the
result set will have NULL values for every column of the table that lacks
a matching row.
» For those records that do match, a single row will be produced in the
result set (containing fields populated from both tables).
Not all SQL implementations have implemented the new
syntax of joined tables.
In some systems, a different syntax was used to specify outer
joins by using the comparison operators +=, =+, and +=+ for
left, right, and full outer join, respectively
For example, this syntax is available in Oracle.To specify the
left outer join in Q8B using this syntax, we could write the
query Q8C as follows:
asc: SELECT E.Lname, S.Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE E, EMPLOYEE S
WHERE E.Super_ssn += S.Ssn;
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MULTIWAY JOIN
Itis also possible to nest join specifications; that is, one of the tables in a join may itself be a joined
table. This allows the specification of the join of three or more tables as a single joined table, which
is called a multiway join
Example: For every project located in ‘Stafford’, list the project number, the controlling department
number, and the department manager's last name,address, and birth date.
SELECT Pnumber, Dnum, Lname, Address, Bdate
FROM ((PROJECT JOIN DEPARTMENT ON Dnum=Dnumber)
JOIN EMPLOYEE ON Mgr_ssn=Ssn)
WHERE Piocation='Stafford’;
1.1.7 Aggregate Functions in SQL
Aggregate functions are used to summarize information from multiple tuples into a single-tuple
summary. A number of built-in aggregate functions exist: COUNT, SUM, MAX, MIN, and AVG. The
COUNT function retums the number of tuples or values as specified in a query. The functions SUM,
MAX, MIN, and AVG can be applied to a set or multiset of numeric values and return, respectively,
the sum, maximum value, minimum value, and average (mean) of those values. These functions
‘can be used in the SELECTclause or in a HAVING clause (Which we introduce later). The functions
MAX and MIN can also be used with attributes that have nonnumeric domains if the domain values
have a total ordering among one another.
Examples
1. Find the sum of the salaries of all employees, the maximum salary, the minimum salary, and the
average salary.
‘SELECT SUM (Salary), MAX (Salary), MIN (Salary), AVG (Salary)
FROM EMPLOYEE;
2. Find the sum of the salaries of all employees of the ‘Research’ department, as well as the
maximum salary, the minimum salary, and the average salary in this department.
SELECT SUM (Salary), MAX (Salary), MIN (Salary), AVG (Salary)
FROM (EMPLOYEE JOIN DEPARTMENT ON Dno=Dnumber)
WHERE Dname="Research’;
3. Count the number of distinct salary values in the database.
SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT Salary)
FROM EMPLOYEE;
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4, To retrieve the names of all employees who have two or more dependents
SELECT Lname, Frame
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE ( SELECT COUNT (")
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE Ssn=Essn ) >= 2;
1.1.8 Grouping: The GROUP BY and HAVING Clauses
Grouping is used to create subgroups of tuples before summarization. For example, we may want
to find the average salary of employees in each department or the number of employees who work
‘on each project. In these cases we need to partition the relation into non overlapping subsets (or
‘groups) of tuples. Each group (partition) will consist of the tuples that have the same value of some
attribute(s), called the grouping attribute(s).
SQL has a GROUP BY clause for this purpose. The GROUP BY clause specifies the grouping
attributes, which should also appear in the SELECT clause, so that the value resulting from applying
‘each aggregate function to a group of tuples appears along with the value of the grouping
attribute(s).
Example: For each department, retrieve the department number, the number of employees in the
department, and their average salary.
SELECT Dno, COUNT (*), AVG (Salary)
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY Dno;
Frame [Mat [Uname | Seo [~[Saary [Super sen [Ono Dro [Count () [Avg (Salary)
Jena _| 8 | Smeh | 199486790 | |a0000| aaa445655| 5 | By 4 99960
Frenan | 1 | wong | 333440000 | | 40000] ssusso000| 0 a|@ ‘31000
Ranesh| K | Naravan| 666884a44| | 38000| aagaanse5 | 5 t[t 55000
Toye | A | Engish | 450450459 |.--| 25000] aag4a5s55| 5 Rocut of O24
Aicia_| 1 | Zaye | 900087777 | [25000] 957654021 | 4
Tenner | S| Walace oazesaaa1 | [4a000| enasssnss | 4
‘anna | v | xabbar | ververve? | [zo0va| vereoeszi | a |
Tares_| E [Bong | 088665565 | [65000] NULL 1
Groucing EMPLOYEE tuples by the valve of Dno
IF NULLs exist in the grouping attribute, then a separate group is created for all tuples with a NULL
value in the grouping attribute. For example, if the EMPLOYEE table had some tuples that had
NULL for the grouping attribute Dno, there would be a separate group for those tuples in the result
of query
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Example: For each project, retrieve the project number, the project name, and the number of
‘employees who work on that project.
SELECT Phumber, Prame, COUNT (*)
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Pnumber=Pno
GROUP BY Pnumber, Pname:
‘Above query shows how we can use a join condition in conjunction with GROUP BY. In this case,
the grouping and functions are applied after the joining of the two relations.
HAVING provides a condition on the summary information regarding the group of tuples associated
with each value of the grouping attributes. Only the groups that satisfy the condition are retrieved in
the result of the query.
Example: For each project on which more than two employees work, retrieve the project number,
the project name, and the number of employees who work on the project.
SELECT Phumber, Prame, COUNT (*)
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Prumber=Pno
GROUP BY Prumber, Pname
HAVING COUNT (") > 2;
Pra eas Ea [Pee [om] se rouns enc seeciaey
Produ 1 Twsaneres | 125 tenner
Produk T ‘aesaaseos[ 1 200 ||
ProduatY 2 vesaoere0 | 275.
Product 2 ~aesasacts| 2 200
Protest 2 ‘sasaasses| 2 | 100
Prost a OE
Prout 3 ‘sssaasses[ 3 | 100
Computerzatan | 10 ‘ga04a5605 | 10100
Computerzaton | 10 ‘seva07777 [10 | 100
Conputerzatin | 10 ‘seron7ae7 [10 | 980
Reorganization | 20 ‘gaa4ass06| 201100
Reorganization | v0 ‘67658821 | 20150
Recrgarizaton | 20 rd
Newbenatie 30 seroa7oe7 | 20 | 50
Newbenels 20 ‘se7esaa21| 20 | 200
Newbenefs 30 00887777 | 80 | 200
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Prams Poumbar [- =] _Esan Bre | Hows Pram Cant
Product 2 seseseren| 2 [_78_[] [emer 3
Product 2 aosenaasa| 2 | 200 > [Computeraaion|
Product 2 gasaasess| 2 | 100 Reorgnzton | 8
Compiterization | 10 aaaaaess | 10 | 100 Newari a
Computerization | 10 |+-s| opgea7777 | 10 | 100 | |—|| Resstoraze
Reorganization | 20 gaaaasess | 20 | 100
Reviyawzaton | 20 aaacsaces | 29 | NULL
Newbenefts 30 geros7ea7 | 30 | 50
Newberehits 30 eaaee7r77 | 30 | 30.0
‘Ato applying he HAVING cause condition
Example: For each project, retrieve the project number, the project name, and the number of
‘employees from department 5 who work on the project.
SELECT Pnumber, Prame, COUNT (*)
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Prumber=Pno AND Ssn=Essn AND Dno=5
GROUP BY Phumber, Pname;
Example: For each department that has more than five employees, retrieve the department number
and the number of its employees who are making more than $40,000.
‘SELECT Dnumber, COUNT (")
FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dnumber=Dno AND Salary>40000 AND
(SELECT Dno
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY Dno
HAVING COUNT (*) > 5);
1.1.9 Discussion and Summary of SQL Queries
A retrieval query in SQL can consist of up to six clauses, but only the first two—SELECT and
FROM—are mandatory The query can span several lines, and is ended by a semicolon. Query
terms are separated by spaces, and parentheses can be used to group relevant parts of a query in
the standard way.The clauses are specified in the following order, with the clauses between square
brackets [... ] being optional
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SELECT
FROM
[WHERE ]
[ GROUP BY ]
[HAVING ]
[ ORDER BY ];
The SELECT clause lists the attributes or functions to be retrieved. The FROM clause specifies all
relations (tables) needed in the query, including joined relations, but not those in nested queries.
The WHERE clause specifies the conditions for selecting the tuples from these relations, including
join conditions if needed. GROUP BY specifies grouping attributes, whereas HAVING specifies a
condition on the groups being selected rather than on the individual tuples. Finally, ORDER BY
specifies an order for displaying the result of a query.
‘A query is evaluated conceptually by first applying the FROM clause to identify all tables involved in
the query or to materialize any joined tables followed by the WHERE clause to select and join
tuples, and then by GROUP BY and HAVING. ORDER BY is applied at the end to sort the query
result Each DBMS has special query optimization routines to decide on an execution plan that is
efficient to execute
In general, there are numerous ways to specify the same query in SQL. This flexibility in specifying
queries has advantages and disadvantages.
= The main advantage is that users can choose the technique with which they are most
comfortable when specifying a query. For example, many queries may be specified with join
conditions in the WHERE clause, or by using joined relations in the FROM clause, or with
some form of nested queries and the IN comparison. From the programmer's and the
system's point of view regarding query optimization, it is generally preferable to write a query
with as little nesting and implied ordering as possible
= The disadvantage of having numerous ways of specifying the same query is that this may
confuse the user, who may not know which technique to use to specify particular types of
queries. Another problem is that it may be more efficient to execute a query specified in one
way than the same query specified in an alternative way
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1.2 Specifying Constraints as Assertions and Actions as Triggers
1.2.1 Specifying General Constraints as Assertions in SQL
Assertions are used to specify additional types of constraints outside scope of built-in relational
model constraints. In SQL, users can specify general constraints via declarative assertions, using
the CREATE ASSERTION statement of the DDL.Each assertion is given a constraint name and is
‘specified via a condition similar to the WHERE clause of an SQL query
General form :
CREATE ASSERTION CHECK ()
For the assertion to be satisfied, the condition specified after CHECK clause must return true.
For example, to specify the constraint that the salary of an employee must not be greater than the
salary of the manager of the department that the employee works for in SQL, we can write the
following assertion
CREATE ASSERTION SALARY_CONSTRAINT.
CHECK ( NOT EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE E, EMPLOYEE M,
DEPARTMENT D WHERE E.Salary>M.Salary AND
E.Dno=D.Dnumber AND D.Mgr_ssn=M.Ssn ) );
The constraint name SALARY_CONSTRAINT is followed by the keyword CHECK, which is followed
by a condition in parentheses that must hold true on every database state for the assertion to be
satisfied. The constraint name can be used later to refer to the constraint or to modify or drop it. Any
WHERE clause condition can be used, but many constraints can be specified using the EXISTS and
NOT EXISTS style of SQL conditions,
By including this query inside a NOT EXISTS clause, the assertion will specify that the result of this,
‘query must be empty so that the condition will always be TRUE. Thus, the assertion is violated if the
result of the query is not empty
Example: consider the bank database with the following tables
+ branch (branch name, branch_city, assets)
* customer (customer_name. customer_street. customer_city)
+ account (account_number. branch_name. balance)
= Joan (loan_number. branch_name, amount)
+ depositor (customer_name, account_number)
+ borrower (customer_name, loan_number)
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1. Write an assertion to specify the constraint that the Sum of loans taken by a customer does not
exceed 100,000
CREATE ASSERTION sumofloans
CHECK (100000> = ALL
SELECT customer_name, sum(amount)
FROM borrower b, loan |
WHERE b.loan_number=I.loan_number
GROUP BY customer_name );
2. Write an assertion to specify the constraint that the Number of accounts for each customer in a
given branch is at most two
CREATE ASSERTION NumAccounts
CHECK ( 2 >= ALL
SELECT customer_name,branch_name, count(*)
FROM account A , depositor D
WHERE A.account_number = D.account_number
GROUP BY customer_name, branch_name };
1.2.2 Introduction to Triggers in SQL
A trigger is procedure that runs automatically when a certain event occurs in the DBMS. In many
‘cases itis convenient to specify the type of action to be taken when certain events occur and when
certain conditions are satisfied. The CREATE TRIGGER statement is used to implement such
actions in SQL.
General form:
CREATE TRIGGER
BEFORE | AFTER |
FOR EACH ROW |FOR EACH STATEMENT
WHEN ()
A trigger has three components
1, Event: When this event happens, the trigger is activated
+ Three event types : Insert, Update, Delete
‘* Two triggering times: Before the event
After the event
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2. Condition (optional): If the condition is true, the trigger executes, otherwise
skipped
3. Action: The actions performed by the trigger
When the Event occurs and Condition is true, execute the Action
Create Trigger ABC
Before Insert On
Students
/
This trigger is activated when an insert statement
is issued, but before the new record is inserted
Create Trigger XYZ
After Update On Students
/
This trigger is activated when an update
statement is issued and after the update is
executed
Does the trigger execute for each updated or deleted record, or once for the entire
statement ?. We define such granularity as follows:
Create Trigger
Before| After
For Each Row | For Each Statement
Create Trigger XYZ
After Update ON
For each statement
/
This trigger is activated once (per UPDATE
statement) after all records are updated
Insert] Update| Delete
—,
This is the event
is the granularity
Create Trigger XYZ
Before Delete ON
For each row
I
This trigger is activated before deleting each
record
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In the action, you may want to reference:
+ The new values of inserted or updated records (:new)
+ The old values of deleted or updated records (sold)
Create Trigger EmpSal
After Insert or Update On Employee Inside ‘When’, the “new" and
For Each Row —_— “old” should not have *:”
When (new.salary >150,000)
Begin
End;
Inside the trigger body, they
should have *:"
Examples:
1) Ifthe employee salary increased by more than 10%, then increment the rank field by 1.
In the case of Update event only, we can specify which columns
Create Trigger EmpS:
Before Update Of salary On Employee
For Each Row
Begin
IF (‘new salary > (‘old salary *1.1)) Then
:new.rank := :old.rank + 15
End IF;
End;
I
We changed the new value of rank field
‘The assignment operator has °:”
2) Keep the bonus attribute in Employee table always 3% of the salary attribute
Create Trigger EmpBonus g—— Midicate two events atthe same time
Before Insert Or Update On Employee
For Each Row
Begin
‘new.bonus =
:new.salary * 0.03;
End; —__
The bonus value is always computed
automatically
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3. Suppose we want to check whenever an employee's salary is greater than the salary of his or
her direct supervisor in the COMPANY database
= Several events can trigger this rule:
+ inserting a new employee record
+ changing an employee's salary or
+ changing an employee's supervisor
= Suppose that the action to take would be to call an extemal stored procedure
SALARY_VIOLATION which will notify the supervisor
CREATE TRIGGER SALARY_VIOLATION
BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE OF SALARY, SUPERVISOR_SSN
ON EMPLOYEE
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN ( NEW.SALARY > ( SELECT SALARY FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE SSN = NEW.SUPERVISOR_SSN)) )
INFORM_SUPERVISOR(NEW.Supervisor_ssn, NEW.Ssn );
= The trigger is given the name SALARY_VIOLATION, which can be used to remove or
deactivate the trigger later
= In this example the events are: inserting a new employee record, changing an employee's,
salary, or changing an employee's supervisor
The action is to execute the stored procedure INFORM_SUPERVISOR
Triggers can be used in various applications, such as maintaining database consistency, monitoring
database updates.
Assertions vs. Triggers
* Assertions do not modify the data, they only check certain conditions. Triggers are more
powerful because the can check conditions and also modify the data
= Assertions are not linked to specific tables in the database and not linked to specific events.
Triggers are linked to specific tables and specific events
= All assertions can be implemented as triggers (one or more). Not all triggers can be
implemented as assertions
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Example: Trigger vs. Assertion
All new customers opening an account must have opening balance >= $100. However, once the
‘account is opened their balance can fall below that amount.
I
We need triggers, assertions cannot be used Trigger Event: Before Insert
(Create Trigger OpeningBal
Before insert On Customer
For Each Row
Begin
IF (;new.balance is null or new.balance < 100) Then
RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR(-20004, ‘Balance should be >= $100;
End
End;
1.3 Views (Virtual Tables) in SQL
1.3.1 Concept of a View in SQL
‘A view in SQL terminology is a single table that is derived from other tables, other tables can be
base tables or previously defined views. A view does not necessarily exist in physical form; it is
considered to be a virtual table, in contrast to base tables, whose tuples are always physically
stored in the database. This limits the possible update operations that can be applied to views, but
it does not provide any limitations on querying a view. We can think of a view as a way of specifying
a table that we need to reference frequently, even though it may not exist physically.
For example, referring to the COMPANY database, we may frequently issue queries that retrieve
the employee name and the project names that the employee works on. Rather than having to
specify the join of the three tables EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, and PROJECT every time we issue
this query, we can define a view that is specified as the result of these joins. Then we can issue
queries on the view, which are specified as single table retrievals rather than as retrievals involving
two joins on three tables. We call the EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, and PROJECT tables the defining
tables of the view.
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1.3.2 Specification of Views in SQL
In SQL, the command to specify a view is CREATE VIEW. The view is given a (virtual) table name
(or view name), a list of attribute names, and a query to specify the contents of the view. If none of
the view attributes results from applying functions or arithmetic operations, we do not have to
specify new attribute names for the view, since they would be the same as the names of the
attributes of the defining tables in the default case.
Example 1:
CREATE VIEW WORKS_ON1
AS SELECT Frame, Lname, Pname, Hours
FROM EMPLOYEE, PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Ssn=Essn AND Pn
Example 2:
CREATE VIEW DEPT_INFO(Dept_name, No_of_emps, Total_sal)
AS SELECT Dname, COUNT (*), SUM (Salary)
FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dnumber=Dno
GROUP BY Dname;
number,
In example 1, we did not specify any new attribute names for the view WORKS_ON1. In this
‘case, WORKS_ON1 inherits the names of the view attributes from the defining tables. EMPLOYEE,
PROJECT, and WORKS_ON.
Example 2 explicitly specifies new attribute names for the view DEPT_INFO, using a one-to-one
‘correspondence between the attributes specified in the CREATE VIEW clause and those specified
in the SELECT clause of the query that defines the view.
WORKS _ON1
Frame | Lname | Prame | Houra
DEPT_INFO
Deptirame | Neolemps | Totaled
‘We can now specify SQL queries on a view—or virtual table—in the same way we specity queries
involving base tables.
For example, to retrieve the last name and first name of all employees who work on the ‘ProductX’
project, we can utilize the WORKS_ON1 view and specify the query as
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SELECT Frame, Lname
FROM WORKS_ON1
WHERE Pname='ProductX’;
The same query would require the specification of two joins if specified on the base relations
directly. one of the main advantages of a view is to simplify the specification of certain queries.
Views are also used as a security and authorization mechanism.
A view is supposed to be always up-to-date; if we modify the tuples in the base tables on which the
view is defined, the view must automatically reflect these changes. Hence, the view is not realized
‘or materialized at the time of view definition but rather at the time when we specify a query on the
view. It is the responsibilty of the DBMS and not the user to make sure that the view is kept up-to-
date.
If we do not need a view any more, we can use the DROP VIEW command to dispose of it. For
‘example : DROP VIEW WORKS_ON1;
13.3
w Implementation, View Update and Inline Views
‘The problem of efficiently implementing a view for querying is complex. Two main approaches have
been suggested
= One strategy, called query modification, involves modifying or transforming the view query
(submitted by the user) into a query on the underlying base tables. For example, the query
SELECT Frame, Lname
FROM WORKS_ON1
WHERE Prame='Productx’;
would be automatically modified to the following query by the DBMS:
SELECT Frame, Lname
FROM EMPLOYEE, PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Ssn=Essn AND Pno=Pnumber
AND Pname="ProductX’;
The disadvantage of this approach is that itis inefficient for views defined via complex queries that
are time-consuming to execute, especially if multiple queries are going to be applied to the same
view within a short period of time,
= The second strategy, called view mate
ion, involves physically creating a temporary view
table when the view is first queried and keeping that table on the assumption that other queries
‘on the view will follow. In this case, an efficient strategy for automatically updating the view table
when the base tables are updated must be developed in order to keep the view up-to-date.
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Techniques using the concept of incremental update have been developed for this purpose,
where the DBMS can determine what new tuples must be inserted, deleted, or modified in a
materialized view table when a database update is applied to one of the defining base tables.
The view is generally kept as a materialized (physically stored) table as long as it is being queried. If
the view is not queried for a certain period of time, the system may then automatically remove the
physical table and recompute it from scratch when future queries reference the view.
Updating of views is complicated and can be ambiguous. In general, an update on a view defined
‘on a single table without any aggregate functions can be mapped to an update on the underlying
base table under certain condi
ns. For a view involving joins, an update operation may be mapped
to update operations on the underlying base relations in multiple ways. Hence, it is often not
possible for the DBMS to determine which of the updates is intended
To illustrate potential problems with updating a view defined on multiple tables, consider the
WORKS_ON1 view, and suppose that we issue the command to update the PNAME attribute of
‘John Smith’ from ‘ProductX’ to ‘Product’. This view update is shown in UV1
UV1: UPDATEWORKS_ON1
SET Pname = ‘ProductY”
WHERE Lname='Smith’ AND Fnam
AND Pname=Productk’
This query can be mapped into several updates on the base relations to give the desired update
john’
effect on the view. In addition, some of these updates will create additional side effects that affect
the result of other queries.
For example, here are two possible updates, (a) and (b), on the base relations corresponding to the
view update operation in UV
(a): UPDATEWORKS_ON
SET Pno= (SELECT Pnumber
FROM PROJECT
WHERE Prame='ProductY’ )
WHERE Essn IN ( SELECT Ssn
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Lname='Smith’ AND Fam
‘AND
Pno= (SELECT Pnumber
FROM PROJECT
WHERE Pname='Productx’ )
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(b): UPDATEPROJECT SET Pname = ‘ProductY”
WHERE Pname = ‘ProductX’;
Update (a) relates John Smith’ to the ‘ProductY’ PROJECT tuple instead of the ‘Productx’
PROJECT tuple and is the most likely desired update. However, (b) would also give the desired
update effect on the view, but it accomplishes this by changing the name of the ‘ProductX’ tuple in
the PROJECT relation to ‘ProductY’.
It is quite unlikely that the user who specified the view update UV1 wants the update to be
interpreted as in (b), since it also has the side effect of changing all the view tuples with Pname =
‘Product’
Some view updates may not make much sense: for example, modifying the Total_sal attribute of the
DEPT_INFO view does not make sense because Total_sal is defined to be the sum of the individual
‘employee salaries. This request is shown as UV2:
v2: UPDATEDEPT_INFO
SET Total_sal=100000
WHERE Dname='Research’;
A large number of updates on the underlying base relations can satisfy this view update.
Generally, a view update is feasible when only one possible update on the base relations can
accomplish the desired update effect on the view. Whenever an update on the view can be mapped
to more than one update on the underlying base relations, we must have a certain procedure for
choosing one of the possible updates as the most likely one.
In summary, we can make the following observations:
= A view with a single defining table is updatable if the view attributes contain the primary key of the
base relation, as well as all attributes with the NOT NULL constraint that do not have default
values specified
1 Views defined on multiple tables using joins are generally not updatable.
1 Views defined using grouping and aggregate functions are not updatable.
In SQL, the clause WITH CHECK OPTION must be added at the end of the view definition if a view
is to be updated. This allows the system to check for view updatabilty and to plan an execution
strategy for view updates. It is also possible to define a view table in the FROM clause of an SQL.
‘query. This is known as an in-line view. In this case, the view is defined within the query itself
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1.4Schema Change Statements in SQL
Schema evolution commands available in SQL can be used to alter a schema by adding or
dropping tables, attributes, constraints, and other schema elements. This can be done while the
database is operational and does not require recompilation of the database schema
1.4.1 The DROP Command
‘The DROP command can be used to drop named schema elements, such as tables, domains, or
constraints. One can also drop a schema. For example, if a whole schema is no longer needed, the
DROP SCHEMA command can be used
There are two drop behavior options: CASCADE and RESTRICT. For example, to remove the
COMPANY database schema and all its tables, domains, and other elements, the CASCADE option
is used as follows
DROP SCHEMA COMPANY CASCADE:
If the RESTRICT option is chosen in place of CASCADE, the schema is dropped only if it has no
elements in it; otherwise, the DROP command will not be executed. To use the RESTRICT option,
the user must first individually drop each element in the schema, then drop the schema itself.
I a base relation within a schema is no longer needed, the relation and its definition can be deleted
by using the DROP TABLE command. For example, if we no longer wish to keep track of
dependents of employees in the COMPANY database, , we can get rid of the DEPENDENT relation
by issuing the following command:
DROP TABLE DEPENDENT CASCADE;
If the RESTRICT option is chosen instead of CASCADE, a table is dropped only if it is not
referenced in any constraints (for example, by foreign key definitions in another relation) or views:
or by any other elements. With the CASCADE option, all such constraints, views, and other
‘elements that reference the table being dropped are also dropped automatically from the schema,
along with the table itself,
‘The DROP TABLE command not only deletes all the records in the table if successful, but also
removes the table definition from the catalog. If itis desired to delete only the records but to leave
the table definition for future use, then the DELETE command should be used instead of DROP
TABLE.
‘The DROP command can also be used to drop other types of named schema elements, such as
constraints or domains.
1.4.2 The ALTER Command
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The definition of a base table or of other named schema elements can be changed by using the
ALTER command. For base tables, the possible alter table actions include adding or dropping a
column (attribute), changing a column definition, and adding or dropping table constraints.
For example, to add an attribute for keeping track of jobs of employees to the EMPLOYEE base
relation in the COMPANY schema , we can use the command:
ALTER TABLE COMPANY.EMPLOYEE ADD COLUMN Job VARCHAR(12);
We must stil enter a value for the new attribute Job for each individual EMPLOYEE tuple. This can
be done either by specifying a default clause or by using the UPDATE command individually on
each tuple. If no default clause is specified, the new attribute will have NULLs in all the tuples of the
relation immediately after the command is executed; hence, the NOT NULL constraint is not allowed
in this case.
To drop a column, we must choose either CASCADE or RESTRICT for drop behavior. if CASCADE
is chosen, all constraints and views that reference the column are dropped automatically from the
schema, along with the column. if RESTRICT is chosen, the command is successful only if no views
or constraints (or other schema elements) reference the column.
For example, the following command removes the attribute Address from the EMPLOYEE base
table:
ALTER TABLE COMPANY.EMPLOYEE DROP COLUMN Address CASCADE.
Itis also possible to alter a column definition by dropping an existing default clause or by defining a
new default clause. The following examples illustrate this clause’
ALTER TABLE COMPANY.DEPARTMENT ALTER COLUMN Mgr_ssn DROP DEFAULT:
ALTER TABLE COMPANY.DEPARTMENT ALTER COLUMN Mgr_ssn SET DEFAULT
333445555);
Alter Table - Alter/Modify Column
To change the data type of a column in a table, use the following syntax:
ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY column_name datatype;
For example we can change the data type of the column named "DateOfBirth" from date to year in
the "Persons" table using the following SQL statement:
ALTER TABLE Persons
ALTER COLUMN DateOfBirth year;
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Notice that the "DateOfBirth” column is now of type year and is going to hold a year in a two- or
four-digit format.
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Chapter 2: Database Application Development
2.1 Introduction
We often encounter a situations in which we need the greater flexibility of a general-purpose
programming language in addition to the data manipulation facilities provided by SQL.For example,
we may want to integrate a database applications with GUI or we may want to integrate with other
existing applications
2.2 Accessing Databases from applications
SQL commands can be executed from within a program in a host language such as C or Java. A
language to which SQL queries are embedded are called Host language
2.2.1 Embedded SQL
The use of SQL commands within a host language is called Embedded SQL. Conceptually,
‘embedding SQL commands in a host language program is straight forward. SQL statements can be
used wherever a statement in the host language is allowed. SQL statements must be clearly
marked so that a preprocessor can deal with them before invoking the compiler for the host
language. Any host language variable used to pass arguments into an SQL command must be
declared in SQL.
There are two complications:
1. Data types recognized by SQL may not be recognized by the host language and vice versa
- This mismatch is addressed by casting data values appropriately before passing them to or
from SQL. commands.
2. SQL is set-oriented
- Addressed using cursors
Declaring Variables and Exceptions
SQL statements can refer to variables defined in the host program. Such host language variables
must be prefixed by a colon(:) in SQL statements and be declared between the commands
EXEC SQL BEGIN DECLARE SECTION and EXEC SQL END DECLARE SECTION
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The declarations are similar to C, are separated by semicolons. For example, we can declare
variables ¢_sname, c_sid, ¢_rating, and c_age (with the initial ¢ used as a naming convention to
‘emphasize that these are host language variables) as follows:
EXEC SQL BEGIN DECLARE SECTION
char ¢_sname[20];
long ¢_sid;
short c_rating:
float cage:
EXEC SQL END DECLARE SECTION
‘The first question that arises is which SQL types correspond to the various C types, since we have
Just declared a collection of C variables whose values are intended to be read (and possibly set) in
an SQL run-time environment when an SQL statement that refers to them is executed. The SQL-92
standard defines such a correspondence between the host language types and SQL types for a
number of host languages. In our example, c_sname has the type CHARACTER(20) when referred
to in an SQL statement, c_sid has the type INTEGER, crating has the type SMALLINT, and c_age
has the type REAL.
We also need some way for SQL to report what went wrong if an error condition arises when
executing an SQL statement. The SQL-92 standard recognizes two special variables for reporting
errors, SQLCODE and SQLSTATE.
+ SQLCODE is the older of the two and is defined to return some negative value when an
error condition arises, without specifying further just what error a particular negative
integer denotes.
+ SQLSTATE, introduced in the SQL-92 standard for the first time, associates predefined
values with several common error conditions, thereby introducing some uniformity to how
errors are reported.
One of these two variables must be deciared. The appropriate C type for SALCODE is long and the
appropriate C type for SQLSTATE is char [6] , that is, a character string five characters long.
Embedding SQL statements
All SQL statements embedded within a host program must be clearly marked with the details
dependent on the host language. In C, SQL statements must be prefixed by EXEC SQL. An SQL
statement can essentially appear in any place in the host language program where a host language
statement can appear.
Example: The following embedded SQL statement inserts a row, whose column values are based
on the values of the host language variables contained in it, into the sailors relation
EXEC SQL INSERT INTO sailors VALUES (:c_sname, :¢_sid, :<_rating,:c_age);
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‘The SQLSTATE variable should be checked for errors and exceptions after each Embedded SQL.
statement.SQL provides the WHENEVER command to simplify this task:
EXEC SQL WHENEVER [SQLERROR | NOT FOUND ] [CONTINUE|GOTO stmt]
If SQLERROR is specified and the value of SQLSTATE indicates an exception, control is
transferred to stmt, which is presumably responsible for error and exception handling. Control is
also transferred to stmt if NOT FOUND is specified and the value of SQLSTATE is 02000, which
denotes NO DATA.
2.2.2 Cursors
‘A major problem in embedding SQL statements in a host language like C is that an impedance
mismatch occurs because SQL operates on sets of records, whereas languages like C do not
cleanly support a set-of records abstraction. The solution is to essentially provide a mechanism that
allows us to retrieve rows one at a time from a relation- this mechanism is called a cursor
We can declare a cursor on any relation or on any SQL query. Once a cursor is declared, we can
= open it (positions the cursor just before the first row)
"Fetch the next row
= Move the cursor (to the next row,to the row after the next n, to the first row or previous row
ete by specifying additional parameters for the fetch command)
* Close the cursor
Cursor allows us to retrieve the rows in a table by positioning the cursor at a particular row and
reading its contents.
Basic Cursor Definition and Usage
Cursors enable us to examine, in the host language program, a collection of rows computed by an
Embedded SQL statement:
+ We usually need to open a cursor if the embedded statement is a SELECT. we can avoid
opening a cursor if the answer contains a single row
= INSERT, DELETE and UPDATE statements require no cursor. some variants of DELETE
and UPDATE use a cursor.
Examples:
i) Find the name and age of a sailor, specified by assigning a value to the host variable o_sid,
declared earlier
EXEC SQL SELECT s.sname,s.age
INTO :c_sname, :o_age
FROM Sailaor s
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The INTO clause allows us assign the columns of the single answer row to the host variable
‘¢_sname and c_age. Therefore, we do not need a cursor to embed this query in a host language
program.
ii) Compute the name and ages of all sailors with a rating greater than the current value of the host
variable ¢_minrating
SELECT s.sname,s.age
FROM sailors s WHERE s rating>:c_minrating;
The query retums a collection of rows. The INTO clause is inadequate. The solution is to use a
cursor:
DECLARE sinfo CURSOR FOR
SELECT s.sname,s.age
FROM sailors s
WHERE s.rating>:¢_minrating;
This code can be included in a C program and once itis executed, the cursor sinfo is defined
We can open the cursor by using the syntax
OPEN sinfo;
‘A cursor can be thought of as ‘pointing’ to a row in the collection of answers to the query associated
with iLWhen the cursor is opened, it is positioned just before the first row.
We can use the FETCH command to read the first row of cursor sinfo into host language variables:
FETCH sinfo INTO :c_sname, :c_age;
When the FETCH statement is executed, the cursor is positioned to point at the next row and the
‘column values in the row are copied into the corresponding host variables. By repeatedly executing
this FETCH statement, we can read all the rows computed by the query, one row at time.
‘When we are done with a cursor, we can close it
CLOSE sinfo;
ili) To retrieve the name, address and salary of an employee specified by the variable ssn
//erogram Segment £1:
0) loop
1) while (loop) ¢
2) prompt Social Security Number: *, ssn) 7
3) BXEC soL.
4) “SELECT Fname, Minit, Lname, Address, Salary
5) INTO :fname, :minit, :Iname, :address, :salary
6) FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE Sen = :s8n 7
7) if (SQLCODE = = 0) print£(fname, minit, Iname, address, salary)
8) else printf(*Social Security Number does not exist: “, ssn) ;
9) prompt ("More Social Security Nunbers (enter 1 for Yes, 0 for No):
10) >
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Properties of Cursors
‘The general form of a cursor deciaration is:
DECLARE cursomame [INSENSITIVE] [SCROLL] CURSOR
[WITH HOLD]
FOR some query
[ORDER BY order-iterist ]
IFOR READ ONLY | FOR UPDATE ]
‘A cursor can be declared to be a read-only cursor (FOR READ ONLY) or updatable cursor (FOR
UPDATE).If it is updatable, simple variants of the UPDATE and DELETE commands allow us to
update or delete the row on which the cursor is positioned. For example, if sinfo is an updatable
‘cursor and open, we can execute the following statement:
UPDATE Sailors S
SET S.rating = S.rating -1
WHERE CURRENT of sinfo;
‘A cursor is updatable by default unless itis a scrollable or insensitive cursor in which case it is read-
only by default.
If the keyword SCROLL is specified, the cursor is scrollable, which means that variants of the
FETCH command can be used to position the cursor in very flexible ways; otherwise, only the basic
FETCH command, which retrieves the next row, is allowed
If the keyword INSENSITIVE is specified, the cursor behaves as if it is ranging over a private copy
of the collection of answer rows. Otherwise, and by default, other actions of some transaction could
modify these rows, creating unpredictable behavior.
‘Aholdable cursor is specified using the WITH HOLD clause, and is not closed when the transaction
is committed,
Optional ORDER BY clause can be used to specify a sort order. The order-itenmlstis a list of order
items. An order-item is a column name, optionally followed by one of the keywords ASC or DESC
Every column mentioned in the ORDER BY clause must also appear in the select-lst of the query
associated with the cursor; otherwise it is not clear what columns we should sort on
ORDER BY minage ASC, rating DESC
‘The answer is sorted first in ascending order by minage, and if several rows have the same minage
value, these rows are sorted further in descending order by rating
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8 25.5
3 255
7 35.0
Dynamic SQL
Dynamic SQL Allow construction of SQL statements on-the-fly. Consider an application such as a
spreadsheet or a graphical front-end that needs to access data from a DBMS. Such an application
must accept commands from a user and, based on what the user needs, generale appropriate SQL
statements to retrieve the necessary data. In such situations, we may not be able to predict in
advance just what SQL statements need to be executed. SQL provides some facilities to deal with
such situations; these are referred to as Dynamic SQL.
Example:
char ¢_sqlstring[] = (/DELETE FROM Sailors WHERE rating>5",
EXEC SQL PREPARE readytogo FROM :csqlstring;
EXEC SQL EXECUTE readytogo:
= The first statement declares the C variable c_sqlstring and initializes its value to the string
representation of an SQL command
= The second statement results in this string being parsed and compiled as an SQL command,
with the resulting executable bound to the SQL variable readytogo
+ The third statement executes the command
2.3 An Introduction to JDBC
Embedded SQL enables the integration of SQL with a general-purpose programming language. A
DBMS-specific preprocessor transforms the Embedded SQL statements into function calls in the
host language. The details of this translation vary across DBMSs, and therefore even though the
source code can be compiled to work with different DBMSs, the final executable works only with one
specific DBMS.
ODBC and JDBC, short for Open DataBase Connectivity and Java DataBase Connectivity, also
‘enable the integration of SQL with a general-purpose programming language.
= In contrast to Embedded SQL, ODBC and JDBC allow a single executable to access
different DBMSs Without recompilation.
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+ While Embedded SQL is DBMS-independent only at the source code level, applications
using ODBC or JDBC are DBMS- independent at the source code level and at the level of the
executable
"In addition, using ODBC or JDBC, an application can access not just one DBMS but several
different ones simultaneously
* ODBC and JDBC achieve portability at the level of the executable by introducing an extra
level of indirection
= Alldirect interaction with a specific DBMS happens through a DBMS-specific driver.
‘A driver is a software program that translates the ODBC or JDBC calls into DBMS-specific calls
Drivers are loaded dynamically on demand since the DBMSs the application is going to access.
are known only at run-time, Available drivers are registered with a driver manager a driver does
not necessarily need to interact with a DBMS that understands SQL. It is sufficient that the
driver translates the SQL commands from the application into equivalent commands that the
DBMS understands.
‘An application that interacts with a data source through ODBC or JDBC selects a data source,
dynamically loads the corresponding driver, and establishes a connection with the data source
There is no limit on the number of open connections. An application can have several open
connections to different data sources. Each connection has transaction semantics; that is,
changes from one connection are visible to other connections only after the connection has
committed its changes. While a connection is open, transactions are executed by submitting
SQL statements, retrieving results, processing errors, and finally committing or rolling back. The
application disconnects from the data source to terminate the interaction
2.3.1 Architecture
The architecture of JDBC has four main components:
* Application
* Driver manager
+ Drivers
* Data sources
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Application
* initiates and terminates the connection with a data source
* sets transaction boundaries, submits SQL statements and retrieves the results
Driver manager
= Load JDBC drivers and pass JDBC function calls from the application to the correct driver
= Handles JDBC initialization and information calls from the applications and can log all
function calls
* Performs some rudimentary error checking
Drivers
* Establishes the connection with the data source
= Submits requests and retums request results
* Translates data, error formats, and error codes from a form that is specific to the data source
into the JDBC standard
Data sources
* Processes commands from the driver and returns the results
Drivers in JDBC are classified into four types depending on the architectural relationship between
the application and the data source:
Type | Bridges:
*= This type of driver translates JDBC function ca
native to the DBMS.
ls into function calls of another AP! that is not
= An example is a JDBC-ODBC bridge; an application can use JDBC calls to access an
ODBC compliant data source. The application loads only one driver, the bridge.
= Advantage
+ it is easy to piggyback the application onto an existing installation, and no new
drivers have to be installed.
= Drawbacks
+ The increased number of layers between data source and application affects
performance
+ the user is limited to the functionality that the ODBC driver supports.
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Type Il Direct Translation to the Native API via Non-Java Driver:
* This type of driver translates JDBC function calls directly into method invocations of the API
of one specific data source.
+ The driver is usually ,written using a combination of C++ and Java; it is dynamically
linked and specific to the data source.
= Advantage
+ This architecture performs significantly better than a JDBC-ODBC bridge.
* Disadvantage
+ The database driver that implements the API needs to be installed on each
computer that runs the application.
Type Ill-~Network Bridges:
= The driver talks over a network to a middleware server that translates the JDBC requests
into DBMS-specific method invocations.
* In this case, the driver on the client site is not DBMS-specific.
* The JDBC driver loaded by the application can be quite small, as the only functionality it
needs to implement is sending of SQL statements to the middleware server.
* The middleware server can then use a Type Il JDBC driver to connect to the data source.
‘Type IV-Direct Translation to the Native API via Java Driver:
= Instead of calling the DBMS API directly, the driver communicates with the DBMS
through Java sockets
= In this case, the driver on the client side is written in Java, but it is DBMS-specific. It
translates JDBC calls into the native API of the database system.
= This solution does not require an intermediate layer, and since the implementation is all
Java, its performance is usually quite good.
2.4 JDBC CLASSES AND INTERFACES
JDBC is a collection of Java classes and interfaces that enables database access from programs
written in the Java language. It contains methods for connecting to a remote data source, executing
SQL statements, examining sets of results from SQL statements, transaction management, and
‘exception handling,
‘The classes and interfaces are part of the java.sql package. JDBC 2.0 also includes the javax.sql
package, the JDBC Optional Package. The package javax.sql adds, among other things, the
capability of connection pooling and the Row-Set interface.
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2.4.1 JDBC Driver Management
In JDBC, data source drivers are managed by the Drivermanager class, which maintains a list of all
‘currently loaded drivers, The Drivermanager class has methods registerDriver, deregisterDriver, and
getDrivers to enable dynamic addition and deletion of drivers.
‘The first step in connecting to a data source is to load the corresponding JDBC driver. The following
Java example code explicitly loads a JDBC driver
Class forName("oracle/jdbe.driver.OracleDriver");
There are two other ways ofregistering a driver. We can include the driver with -Djdbe.
drivers=oracle/jdbe. driver at the command line when we start the Java application. Alternatively, we
‘can explicitly instantiate a driver, but this method is used only rarely, as the name of the driver has
to be specified in the application code, and thus the application becomes sensitive to changes at the
driver level
After registering the driver, we connect to the data source.
2.4.2 Connections
A session with a data source is started through creation of a Connection object; Connections are
specified through a JDBC URL, a URL that uses the jdbc protocol. Such a URL has the form
Jdbe:
‘subprotocob>:
String uri = .. dbyc:oracle:www.bookstore.com:3083.
Connection connection;
ty
{
Connection connection =
DriverManager.getConnection(url, userid, password);
}
catch(SQLException exept)
{
System.out.printIn(excpt.getMessage):
return;
}
Program code: Establishing a Connection with JDBC.
In JDBC, connections can have different properties. For example, a connection can specify the
granularity of transactions. If autocommit is set for a connection, then each SQL statement is
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considered to be its own transaction. If autocommit is off, then a series of statements that compose
a transaction can be committed using the commit) method of the Connection class, or aborted
Using the rollback() method. The Connection class has methods to set the autocommit mode
(Connection, setAutoCommit) and to retrieve the current autocommit mode (getAutoCommit). The
following methods are part of the Connection interface and permit setting and getting other
properties:
= public int getTransactionlsolation() throws SQLException and
Public void setTransactionisolation int 1) throws SQLException
= These two functions get and set the current level of isolation for transactions
handled in the current connection, All five SQL levels of isolation are possible, and
argument / can be set as follows:
- TRANSACTION_NONE
- TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED
- TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED
- TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ
+ TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE
= public boolean getReadOnlyO throws SQLException and
Public void setReadOnly(boolean readOnly) throws SQLException.
~ These two functions allow the user to specify whether the transactions executec! through
this connection are road only.
* public boolean isClosed\) throws SQLException.
~ Checks whether the current connection has already been closed.
= setAutoCommit and get AutoCommit.
In case an application establishes many different connections from different parties (such as a Web
server), connections are often pooled to avoid this overhead. A connection pool is a set of
established connections to a data source. Whenever a new connection is needed, one of the
‘connections from the pool is used, instead of creating a new connection to the data source.
2.4.3 Executing SQL Statements
JDBC supports three different ways of executing statements:
+ Statement
+ PreparedStatement, and
+ CallableStatement.
The Statement class is the base class for the other two statement classes. It allows us to query the
data source with any static or dynamically generated SQL query.
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The PreparedStatement class dynamically generates precompiled SQL statements that can be
used several times; these SQL statements can have parameters, but their structure is fixed when
the PreparedStatement object is created.
1 initial quantity is always zero
String sql = "INSERT INTO Books VALUES(’?, 7,'?, ?, 0, 7
PreparedStatement pstmt = con.prepareStatement(sql);
/ now instantiate the parameters with values
J /a,ssume that isbn, title, etc. are Java variables that
1 contain the values to be inserted
pstmt.clearParameters() ;
pstmt setString(, isbn):
pstmt setString(2, tile):
pstmt.setString(3, author);
pstmt.setFloat(6, price);
pstmt setint(6, year):
int numRows = pstmt.executeUpdate();
program code: SQL Update Using a PreparedStatement Object
The SQL query specifies the query string, but uses "?' for the values of the parameters, which are
set later using methods setString, setFloat.and setint. The "?” placeholders can be used anywhere
in SQL statements where they can be replaced with a value. Examples of places where they can
appear include the WHERE clause (e.g., ‘WHERE author=), or in SQL UPDATE and INSERT
statements. The method setString is one way to set a parameter value; analogous methods are
available for int, float, and date. It is good style to always use clearParameters() before setting
parameter values in order to remove any old data.
There are different ways of submitting the query string to the data source. In the example, we used
the executeUpdate command, which is used if we know that the SQL statement does not retum
any records (SQL UPDATE, INSERTALTER, and DELETE statements). The executeUpdate
method retums
= an integer indicating the number of rows the SQL statement modified
- 0 for successful execution without modifying any rows.
‘The executeQuery method is used if the SQL statement retums data, such as in a regular SELECT
‘query. JDBC has its own cursor mechanism in the form of a ResultSet object.
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2.4,4 ResultSets
ResultSet cursors in JDBC 2.0 are very powerful, they allow forward and reverse scrolling and in-
place editing and insertions. In its most basic form, the ResultSet object allows us to read one row
of the output of the query at a time. intially, the ResultSet is positioned before the first row, and we
have to retrieve the first row with an explicit call to the next() method. The next method retums false
if there are no more rows in the query answer, and true other\vise. The code fragment shown below
illustrates the basic usage of a ResultSet object:
ResultSet rs=simt execute Query(sqlQuery);
rs is now a cursor
1 first call to rs.nextO moves to the first record
I rs.nextO moves to the next row
String sqlQuery;
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sqlQuery)
while (rs.next()
{
11 process the data
}
While next () allows us to retrieve the logically next row in the query answer, we can move about in
the query answer in other ways too:
+ previous() moves back one row.
+ absolute(int num) moves to the row with the specified number.
+ relative(int num) moves forward or backward (if num is negative) relative to the current
position, relative (-1) has the same effect as previous.
+ first() moves to the first row, and last() moves to the last row.
Matching Java and SQL Data Types
In considering the interaction of an application with a data source, the issues we encountered in the
context of Embedded SQL (e.g., passing information between the application and the data source
through shared variables) arise again. To deal with such issues, JDBC provides special data types
and specifies their relationship to corresponding SQL data types. Table 2.4.4 shows the accessor
methods in a ResultSet object for the most common SQL datatypes.
With these accessor methods, we can retrieve values from the current row of the query result
referenced by the ResultSet object. There are two forms for each accessor method. One method
retrieves values by column index, starting at one, and the other retrieves values by column name.
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The following example shows how to access fields of the current ResultSet row using accesssor
methods.
ResultSet rs=stmt.executeQuery(sqlQuery):
String sqiQuerYi
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sqlQuery)
while (rs.nextO)
{
isbn = rs.getString( |);
tile = rs.getString(” TITLE”
1 process isbn and title
}
SQL Type Java class ResultSet get method
BIT Boolean getBoolean)
CHAR String getstringd)
VARCHAR String getstringd
DOUBLE Double getDoubleQ
FLOAT Double getDoubleg
INTEGER Integer getintg
REAL Double getFloaty)
DATE java sql.Date getDate()
TIME jJava.sqi.Time getrime)
[TIMESTAMP [javacsqiTimeStamp | getTimestamp) ‘|
Table 2.4.4 : Reading SQL Datatypes from a ResultSet Object
2.4.5 Exceptions and Warnings
Similar to the SQLSTATE variable, most of the methods in java. sql can throw an exception of the
type SQLException if an error occurs. The information includes SQLState, a string that describes
the error (e.g., whether the statement contained an SQL syntax error). In addition to the standard
getMessage() method inherited from Throwable, SQLException has two additional methods that
provide further information, and a method to get (or chain) additional exceptions:
= public String getSQLState() retums an SQLState identifier based on the SQL:1999
specification
= public int getErrorCode () retrieves a vendor-specific error code
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