SQL

CS 186, Spring 2007, Lecture 7

R&G, Chapter 5
Mary Roth


The important thing is not to
stop questioning.

Albert Einstein
Life is just a bowl of queries.

-Anon
(not Forrest Gump)
Administrivia

• Homework 1 due Thursday, Feb 8 10 p.m.

• Source code for diskmgr and global are available on

class web site

• Coming up:
– Homework 2 handed out Feb 13
– Midterm 1: in class February 22
• Questions?
 Review

• Query languages provide 2 key advantages:

– Less work for user asking query
– More opportunities for optimization
• Algebra and safe calculus are simple and powerful
models for query languages for relational model
– Have same expressive power
– Algebra is more operational; calculus is more
declarative
• SQL can express every query that is expressible in
relational algebra/calculus. (and more)
 Review: Where have we been?

Theory Practice

Query Optimization
Relational Calculus Lecture 6 and Execution

Relational Operators

Relational Algebra Lecture 5 Files and Access Methods

Buffer Management
Lectures 3 &4
Relational Model
Disk Space Management
Lecture 2

DB
Where are we going next?

This week Practice

Query Optimization
After the and Execution
midterm
Relational Operators

Files and Access Methods

Next week
SQL
Buffer Management

Disk Space Management

DB
 Review: Relational Calculus Example
Find names, ages and reservation dates sid sname rating age
of sailors rated > 7 who’ve reserved
S 22 dustin 7 45.0
boat #103 S 31 lubber 8 55.5
S 58 rusty 10 35.0
3 quantifiers, but only 1 is free.
The free quantifier defines the shape of the
result. sid bid day
R 22 101 10/10/96
R 58 103 11/12/96
{S1 |  SSailors  S.rating > 7 
 R(RReserves  R.bid = 103
 R.sid = S.sid)  sname age day

(S1.sname = S.name  S1 rusty 35.0 11/12/96

S1.age = S.age 
S1.day = R.day)}
 Review: The SQL Query Language

• The most widely used relational query

language.
• Standardized
(although most systems add their own “special sauce”
-- including PostgreSQL)
• We will study SQL92 -- a basic subset
 Review: SQL
• Two sublanguages:
– DDL – Data Definition Language
• Define and modify schema (at all 3 levels)
– DML – Data Manipulation Language
• Queries and IUD (insert update delete)

• DBMS is responsible for efficient evaluation.

– Relational completeness means we can define
precise semantics for relational queries.
– Optimizer can re-order operations, without affecting
query answer.
– Choices driven by “cost model”
 Sailors
Review: DDL
sid sname rating age
CREATE TABLE Sailors 1 Frodo 7 22
(sid INTEGER,NOT NULL, 2 Bilbo 2 39
sname CHAR(20),
rating INTEGER, 3 Sam 8 27
age REAL,
PRIMARY KEY sid)
Boats
CREATE TABLE Boats bid bname color
(bid INTEGER,NOT NULL,
bname CHAR (20), 101 Nina red
color CHAR(10) 102 Pinta blue
PRIMARY KEY bid)
103 Santa Maria red
CREATE TABLE Reserves
(sid INTEGER, NOT NULL, Reserves
bid INTEGER, NOT NULL,
day DATE,NOT NULL, sid bid day
PRIMARY KEY (sid, bid, day), 1 102 9/12
FOREIGN KEY sid REFERENCES Sailors,
FOREIGN KEY bid REFERENCES Boats)
2 102 9/13
 Integrity Constraints (ICs)
• A foreign key constraint is an Integrity Constraint:
– a condition that must be true for any instance of the database;
– Specified when schema is defined.
– Checked when relations are modified.
• Primary/foreign key constraints; but databases support
more general constraints as well.
– e.g. domain constraints like:
• Rating must be between 1 and 10
ALTER TABLE SAILORS
ADD CONSTRAINT RATING
CHECK (RATING >= 1 AND RATING < 10)

• Or even more complex (and potentially nonsensical):

ALTER TABLE SAILORS
ADD CONSTRAINT RATING
CHECK (RATING*AGE/4 <= SID)
 DBMSs have fairly sophisticated support
for constraints!
• Specify them on CREATE or ALTER TABLE statements

• Column Constraints:
expressions for column constraint must produce boolean results
and reference the related column’s value only.

NOT NULL | NULL | UNIQUE | PRIMARY KEY | CHECK

(expression)

FOREIGN KEY (column) referenced_table

[ ON DELETE action ] [ ON UPDATE action ] }
action is one of:
NO ACTION, CASCADE, SET NULL, SET DEFAULT
 DBMSs have fairly sophisticated support
for constraints!

• Table Constraints:
UNIQUE ( column_name [, ... ] )
PRIMARY KEY ( column_name [, ... ] ) |
CHECK ( expression ) |
FOREIGN KEY ( column_name [, ... ] ) REFERENCES reftable
[ ON DELETE action ] [ ON UPDATE action ] }

Here, expressions, keys, etc can include multiple columns

 Integrity Constraints can help prevent
data consistency errors
• …but they have drawbacks:
– Expensive
– Can’t always return a meaningful error back to the
application.
e.g: What if you saw this error when you enrolled in a
course online?
“A violation of the constraint imposed by a unique
index or a unique constraint occurred”.
– Can be inconvenient
e.g. What if the ‘Sailing Class’ application wants to register
new (unrated) sailors with rating 0?
• So they aren’t widely used
– Software developers often prefer to keep the integrity
logic in applications instead
Intermission
 SQL DML

• DML includes 4 main statements:

SELECT (query), INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE

We’ll spend a lot of time on this one

• e.g: To find the names of all 19 year old students:

PROJECT
sid name login age gpa
SELECT S.name
53666 Jones jones@cs 18 3.4
FROM Students S 53688 Smith smith@ee 18 3.2
WHERE S.age=19 53650 Smith smith@math 19 3.8
SELECT
 Querying Multiple Relations
• Can specify a join over two tables as follows:

SELECT S.name, E.cid PROJECT

FROM Students S, Enrolled E SELECT

WHERE S.sid=E.sid AND E.grade=‘B'

JOIN
sid cid grade sid name login age gpa
53831 Carnatic101 C 53666 Jones jones@cs 18 3.4
53831 Reggae203 B 53688 Smith smith@ee 18 3.2
53650 Topology112 A
53666 History105 B

S.name E.cid
result =
Jones History105
 Basic SQL Query
DISTINCT: optional keyword indicating target-list : A list of attributes
answer should not contain duplicates. of tables in relation-list
In SQL, default is that duplicates
are not eliminated! (Result is called
a “multiset”)
SELECT [DISTINCT] target-list
FROM relation-list
WHERE qualification

qualification : Comparisons
relation-list : A list of relation
combined using AND, OR and
NOT. Comparisons are Attr op names, possibly with a range-
const or Attr1 op Attr2, where op is variable after each name
one of ,,,, etc.
 Query Semantics
• Semantics of an SQL query are defined in terms of the
following conceptual evaluation strategy:
1. FROM clause: compute cross-product of all tables
2. WHERE clause: Check conditions, discard tuples that fail.
(called “selection”).
3. SELECT clause: Delete unwanted fields. (called
“projection”).
4. If DISTINCT specified, eliminate duplicate rows.

• Probably the least efficient way to compute a query!

– An optimizer will find more efficient strategies to get the
same answer.
 Query Semantics Example

SELECT sname
FROM Sailors, Reserves
WHERE Sailors.sid=Reserves.sid AND bid=103
Boats
bid bname color
Sailors
sid sname rating age
1 Frodo 7 22
101
102
103
X
Nina
Pinta
red
blue
Santa Maria red
2 Bilbo 2 39
3 Sam 8 27 Reserves
sid bid day
1 102 9/12
2 103 9/13
 Step 1: Compute the cross product
Sailors Reserves
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27

SailorsXReserves
...
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
1 Frodo 7 22 2 103 9/13
2 Bilbo 2 39 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27 1 103 9/12
3 Sam 8 27 2 103 9/13
 Step 1: How big?
Sailors Reserves
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27

Question:
If |S| is cardinality of Sailors, and
|R| is cardinality of Reserves,
What is the cardinality of Sailors X Reserves?

Answer: |S| * |R| |Sailors X Reserves| = 3X2 = 6

 Step 2: Check conditions in where clause

SELECT sname
FROM Sailors, Reserves
WHERE Sailors.sid=Reserves.sid AND bid=103
SailorsXReserves
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
1 Frodo 7 22 2 103 9/13
2 Bilbo 2 39 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27 1 102 9/12
3 Sam 8 27 2 103 9/13
 Step 3: Delete unwanted fields
SELECT sname
FROM Sailors, Reserves
WHERE Sailors.sid=Reserves.sid AND bid=103
SailorsXReserves
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
1 Frodo 7 22 2 103 9/13
2 Bilbo 2 39 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27 1 102 9/12
3 Sam 8 27 2 103 9/13
 Range Variables
•Used for short hand
•Needed when ambiguity could arise
e.g two tables with the same column name:

SELECT sname
FROM Sailors, Reserves
WHERE Sailors.sid=Reserves.sid AND Reserves.bid=103

SELECT sname
FROM Sailors S, Reserves R
WHERE S.sid=R.sid AND R.bid=103

Question: do range variables remind you of anything?

Variables in relational calculus
 Sometimes you need a range variable
e.g a Self-join: bid day

SELECT R1.bid, R1.date 103 9/12

FROM Reserves R1, Reserves R2 103 9/12

WHERE R1.bid = R2.bid and

R1.date = R2.date and
R1.sid != R2.sid
Reserves Reserves

sid bid day sid bid day

R1 1 102 9/12 R2 1 102 9/12
R1 3 103 9/12 R2 3 103 9/12
4 103 9/13 R2 4 103 9/13
R1 2 103 9/12 R2 2 103 9/12
 Sometimes you need a range variable
SELECT R1.bid, R1.day bid day

FROM Reserves R1, Reserves R2 103 9/12

WHERE R1.bid = R2.bid and 103 9/12

R1.day = R2.day and

R1.sid != R2.sid

What are we computing?

Boats reserved on the same day
by different sailors
 SELECT Clause Expressions
• Can use “*” if you want all columns:
SELECT *
FROM Sailors x
WHERE x.age > 20
• Can use arithmetic expressions (add other operations
we’ll discuss later)
SELECT S.age, S.age-5 AS age1, 2*S.age AS age2
FROM Sailors S
WHERE S.sname = ‘Dustin’

• Can use AS to provide column names

SELECT S1.sname AS name1, S2.sname AS name2
FROM Sailors S1, Sailors S2
WHERE 2*S1.rating = S2.rating - 1
 WHERE Clause Expressions

• Can also have expressions in WHERE clause:

SELECT S1.sname AS name1, S2.sname AS name2
FROM Sailors S1, Sailors S2
WHERE 2*S1.rating = S2.rating - 1

•“LIKE” is used for string matching.

SELECT S.age, S.age-5 AS age1, 2*S.age AS age2
FROM Sailors S
WHERE S.sname LIKE ‘B_l%o’

`_’ stands for any one character and `%’ stands for 0 or more
arbitrary characters.
 SELECT DISTINCT
Sailors Reserves
sid sname rating age sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22 1 102 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39 2 103 9/12
3 Sam 8 27 2 102 9/13

SELECT DISTINCT S.sid

FROM Sailors S, Reserves R
WHERE S.sid=R.sid
sid
1
Find sailors that have reserved at least one boat 2
 SELECT DISTINCT
• How about:
SELECT S.sid
FROM Sailors S, Reserves R
WHERE S.sid=R.sid

sid
1
2
2
 Sailors
SELECT DISTINCT
sid sname rating age
How about: 1 Frodo 7 22
sname
2 Bilbo 2 39
SELECT S.sname Frodo
3 Sam 8 27
FROM Sailors S, Bilbo
Bilbo 4 Bilbo 5 32
Reserves R
WHERE S.sid=R.sid
Reserves
sid bid day
vs:
1 102 9/12
SELECT DISTINCT 2 103 9/13
S.sname 4 105 9/13
FROM Sailors S, sname
Reserves R Frodo Do we find all sailors
WHERE S.sid=R.sid that reserved at least
Bilbo one boat?
 ANDs, ORs, UNIONs and INTERSECTs

Find sids of sailors who’ve reserved a red or a green boat

Boats
SELECT R.sid
bid bname color
FROM Boats B,Reserves R
101 Nina red
WHERE(B.color=‘red’ OR
B.color=‘green’) 102 Pinta blue
AND R.bid=B.bid 103 Santa Maria red
sid 105 Titanic green
Sailors 2
4 Reserves
sid sname rating age
sid bid day
1
2
3
Frodo
Bilbo
Sam
X 7
2
8
22
39
27
1
2
4
102
103
105
9/12
9/13
9/13
 ANDs and ORs

Find sids of sailors who’ve reserved a red and a green

boat
Boats
SELECT R.sid
bid bname color
FROM Boats B,Reserves R

X
WHERE(B.color=‘red’ AND
B.color=‘green’)
AND R.bid=B.bid
101
102
103
Nina
Pinta
Santa Maria
red
blue
red
105 Titanic green
Sailors
Reserves
sid sname rating age
sid bid day
1 Frodo 7 22
1 101 9/12
2 Bilbo 2 39
2 103 9/13
3 Sam 8 27
1 105 9/13
 Use INTERSECT instead of
AND
Exercise: try to rewrite this
SELECT R.sid query using a self join instead
of INTERSECT!
FROM Boats B,Reserves R
WHERE B.color = ‘red’
AND R.bid=B.bid Boats
bid bname color
INTERSECT 101 Nina red
102 Pinta blue
SELECT R.sid 103 Santa Maria red
FROM Boats B,Reserves R 105 Titanic green
WHERE B.color = ‘green’
AND R.bid=B.bid Reserves
sid bid day
sid
sid sid 1 101 9/12
1
 1 = 1 2 103 9/13
2
1 105 9/13
 Could also use UNION for
the OR query
SELECT R.sid
FROM Boats B, Reserves R
WHERE B.color = ‘red’
AND R.bid=B.bid Boats
bid bname color
UNION 101 Nina red
102 Pinta blue
SELECT R.sid 103 Santa Maria red
FROM Boats B, Reserves R 105 Titanic green
WHERE B.color = ‘green’
AND R.bid=B.bid Reserves
sid sid bid day
sid sid 2 1 102 9/12
2

4 = 4 2 103 9/13
4 105 9/13
 EXCEPT: Set Difference Sailors
Find sids of sailors who have not sid sname rating age
reserved a boat 1 Frodo 7 22
2 Bilbo 2 39
SELECT S.sid
3 Sam 8 27
FROM Sailors S
EXCEPT Reserves
SELECT S.sid sid bid day
FROM Sailors S, 1 102 9/12
Reserves R 2 103 9/13
WHERE S.sid=R.sid
1 105 9/13

First find the set of sailors who

have reserved a boat… sid
and then compare it with the 3
rest of the sailors