SQL Ref Manual

AN INTRODUCTION TO ORACLE AND SQL
1. INTRODUCTION
ORACLE is a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). As such, the only data
structure that it supports is the TABLE. A Table is simply a twodimensional matrix with
horizontal ROWS and vertical COLUMNS. Readers may be interested to note that a RDBMS is
an implementation of Codd’s Relational Data Model and that in the literature on relational
topics certain items are often slightly different. In particular, our Tables are called RELATIONS,
our rows are called TUPLES and our columns are called ATTRIBUTES.
ORACLE has one language to handle both definition and manipulation of the data.
Furthermore, this same language also deals with Security aspects.
This language is called SQL ( Often referred to as SeQueL or Structured Query Language).
Although the trend is to provide the user of ORACLE applications with higher level user
interfaces (e.g. Forms based application screens) where no knowledge of SQL is necessary, it is
essential that anyone involved in the development of ORACLE applications has a thorough
grounding in SQL.
People registered as ORACLE users will obviously wish to create and manipulate their own
Tables. However, the approach taken by this introductory text will be to concentrate initially
on the retrieval aspects of SQL. In particular, we will consider retrieval operations on some
sample tables to which all users have been granted readonly access. The sample tables are
EMP, DEPT, SALGRADE are described in Appendix 1.
Readers wishing to define and manipulate their own tables are advised to read Chapters 7 and
8.
This introductory text should be used as a manual and therefore you should not attempt to
work through it in sequence. An initial read through is recommended so that you get an idea
of the range of features available, after that use the manual for reference purposes only.
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2. GETTING STARTED WITH SQLPLUS
2.1 SQLPLUS
ORACLE RDBMS has a number of component software parts. The component that we shall
use to familiarise ourselves with SQL is called SQLPLUS.
SQLPLUS consists of the usual SQL data manipulation, definition and access statements, plus
a number of extra statements for formatting, reportwriting and filehandling.
SQLPLUS statements are held in an SQL buffer. The current line operated on by the keyboard
is known as the Command Line, but an SQL statement may spread over several lines.
2.2 Using SQLPLUS Graphical User Interface
To start the graphical user interface:
Choose Start> Programs > Oracle for Windows NT > SQL Plus 8.0
The Log On dialog box appears:
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1. Enter your user name and password (given to you in class). In the Host string part enter
eden01.
2. Click OK.
The Oracle SQLPLUS application window is displayed.
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2.2.1 Using the SQLPLUS Application Window
SQLPLUS displays the SQL command prompt in the application window. To enter SQLPLUS
commands, type each command at the SQL prompt and press Enter.
You can use the mouse buttons to copy previously entered SQL commands to the current SQL
prompt.
To copy a command, highlight the intended command with the left mouse button. While still
holding down the left mouse button, click the right mouse button. SQLPLUS copies the text to
the SQL prompt.
2.2.2 Using the SQLPLUS Menus
This section describes the menus in the GUI version of SQLPLUS.
File Menu
The File Menu contains the following commands:
Open The Open command retrieves a previously stored command file.
By default, SQLPLUS looks for a command file with the .SQL extension.
Save The Save command contains three subcommands:
Save Create, Save Replace and Save Append.
• Save Create saves the contents of the SQLPLUS buffer in a command file.
• Save Replace replaces the contents of an existing file with the contents of the
SQLPLUS buffer. If the file does not exist, SQLPLUS creates the file.
• Save Append adds the contents of the SQLPLUS buffer to the end of the file
you specify.
After you save a command file, you can do the following:
• Retrieve the file with the Open command from the File menu.
• Edit the file with the Editor command from the Edit menu.
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• Run the file with the Run command from the File Menu.
Save As The Saves As command saves the contents of the SQLPLUS buffer in a command
file.
Spool The Spool command contains two subcommands: Spool File and Spool Off.
Spool File stores query results in a file. By default, SQLPLUS assigns the .LST
extension to spool files. You can specify a different extension in the File name text
box. You can edit the results with the Editor command from the Edit menu and
also print the file.
Spool Off turns off spooling.
Run The Run command lists and executes the SQL command block currently stored in
the SQL buffer.
Cancel The Cancel command cancels an inprogress operation.
Exit The Exit command commits all pending database changes and closes the
SQLPLUS application window.
Edit Menu
The Edit Menu contains the following commands:
Copy The Copy command copies the selected text to the Clipboard.
After you copy text to the Clipboard, you can paste the text into other Windows
applications, such as MS Excel and MS Word.
Paste The Paste command pastes the contents of the Clipboard onto the SQLPLUS
command line.
Clear The Clear command clears the screen of the SQLPLUS application window and
the screen buffer.
Editor The Editor command contains two subcommands: Invoke Editor and Define
Editor.
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Invoke Editor loads the contents of the SQLPLUS buffer into an editor. By
default, SQLPLUS saves the file to AFIEDT.BUF. You can specify a different file
name in the editor.
Define Editor defines the editor that is invoked.
Search Menu
The Search Menu contains the following commands:
Find The Find command searches for a character, a word, or a group of characters or
words in the SQLPLUS application window. When you choose the Find
command, SQLPLUS begins the search at the top of the displayed screen.
Note: When SQLPLUS reaches the end of the displayed screen, it will not
automatically continue searching from the top of the SQLPLUS screen buffer.
Find Next The Find Next command finds the next occurrence of the search text.
Getting Help
You can obtain help from within SQLPLUS be typing HELP <topic> at the SQL> prompt.
e.g. SQL> HELP INSERT; gives help on the INSERT statement

SQL> HELP; lists all SQL and SQLPLUS commands
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Note that for the remaining sections of this document, we will not include the SQL> prompt in
example code segments. These segments will appear just as they should be typed. Also the
code will not be shown in a window.
3. RETRIEVAL FROM A SINGLE TABLE
In practice, retrieval may well be from a number of Tables at one time. However, in any
introduction to SQL, many concepts can be illustrated by retrieving data from one table at a
time. It might be useful for the novice ORACLE user to type in the examples in order to
become familiar with the system and also see how the Queries work.
3.1 Selecting Complete Tables
eg SELECT *
FROM EMP
Selects ALL columns and ALL rows from the EMP table. The asterisk is responsible for
selecting all the columns.
3.2 Selecting Complete Rows
e.g. SELECT * SELECTS ALL columns from those rows of the

FROM EMP EMP table for which the value of the ENAME
WHERE ENAME = ‘SMITH’; column is ‘SMITH’.
The WHERE clause is responsible for selecting particular rows of the table or tables. The

format of the WHERE clause is WHERE <condition> and those rows that are such that the
condition is TRUE are chosen as the result of the SQL SELECT statement.
The <condition> can be complex, using combinations of various Boolean operators. A full list
of operators and their precedence is given in the ORACLE SQLPLUS Users’ Guide.
e.g. SELECT * selects ALL columns from those rows of the EMP

FROM EMP table for which the value of the SAL column is
WHERE SAL> 1300 greater than 1300 and the value of
AND DEPTNO = 30; DEPTNO is equal to 30.
e.g. SELECT * selects all rows from the EMP table where the job

FROM EMP is not MANAGER
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WHERE JOB <> ‘MANAGER’;
e.g. SELECT * selects ALL rows from the EMP table where the

FROM EMP job is MANAGER or CLERK.
WHERE JOB = ‘MANAGER’
OR JOB = ‘CLERK’;
e.g. SELECT * selects ALL rows from the EMP table where the

FROM EMP job is not MANAGER or CLERK.
WHERE NOT (JOB = ‘MANAGER’
OR JOB = ‘CLERK’);
Note that the WHERE clause causes a Horizontal 'slicing' of a Table.
3.3 Boolean Operator definition and Precedence
Operator Meaning
= equal to
<> (or !=) not equal to
> greater than
>= greater than or equal to
< less than
<= less than or equal to
BETWEEN...AND... between two values
IN (list) any of a list of values
LIKE match a character pattern
IS NULL is a null value
To negate the last four operators, use the operator NOT:
i.e. NOT BETWEEN, NOT IN, NOT LIKE and IS NOT NULL.
Combination Operators
Conditions formed from the above operators can be combined using the operators AND, OR
and NOT. AND will normally take precedence over OR but any special precedence can be
achieved through judicious use of brackets ().
Examples
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a) AND OR precedence
WHERE SAL> 1500 AND JOB = ‘MANAGER’ OR SAL > 1200 AND JOB = ‘SALESMAN’
^ ^ ^ ^
condition 1 condition 2 condition 3 condition 4
The expression will be carried out as follows:
1. Each of the 4 conditions are evaluated to be true or false
2. Condition 1 and Condition 2 are ANDed to produce TRUE if both are true and FALSE
otherwise
3. Condition 3 and Condition 4 are ANDed to produce TRUE if both are true and FALSE

otherwise
4. The results for 2. and 3. are ORed together to produce a final result of TRUE if either is true
and FALSE otherwise.
b) BETWEEN
SELECT * This is equivalent to WHERE SAL >= 1200
FROM EMP AND SAL <= 1400
WHERE SAL BETWEEN 1200 AND 1400;
SELECT * This is equivalent to WHERE SAL < 1200
FROM EMP OR SAL > 1400
WHERE SAL NOT BETWEEN 1200 AND 1400;
c) IN
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB IN (‘CLERK’, ‘ANALYST’, ’SALESMAN’);
Selects rows where the JOB is CLERK, ANALYST or SALESMAN
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB NOT IN (“CLERK’, ‘ANALYST’, ‘SALESMAN’);
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Selects rows where the JOB is not CLERK, ANALYST or SALESMAN
d) LIKE
LIKE is used to match character patterns, and in order to do this, recognises two special
characters in a character value:
% represents any sequence of zero or more characters
_ represents any single character
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME LIKE ‘M%’;
Selects rows where the ENAME column begins with ‘M’.
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME LIKE ‘ALL_N’;
Selects rows where the ENAME column consists of ALL (any character) N
e.g. ENAME has the value ALLAN, ALLEN, ALLZN
The characters % and _ can be used in any combination in a character pattern.
e) IS NULL
Sometimes, values for a column are not known, or are inappropriate. In a case like this, the
existence of a NULL value can be entered. Note that NULL is not the same as zero.
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE COMM IS NULL;
Selects rows where the commission field has no entered value, except for the value NULL.
3.4 Ordering Rows
When rows are selected from a table or tables, the order of their display is undefined. In fact,
the order may be different for the same query at a different time. If a particular order is
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required, then an ORDER phrase must be added to the query. The ORDER appears after any
WHERE phrase.
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP
ORDER BY EMPNO;
Orders all the rows of the EMP in ascending order of EMPNO. Ascending order is the default.
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30
ORDER BY SAL DESC;
Selects all rows where the DEPTNO is 30 and orders the output in descending order of SAL.
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP
ORDER BY JOB, SAL DESC;
Orders the EMP table firstly in alphabetic order of JOB and then for each JOB by descending
order of SAL.
Note that if there are NULL values in an ORDER BY column, then they will appear first,

regardless of whether the required order is ascending or descending.
3.5 Selecting Columns
As well as making horizontal operations on a table through selection of rows, it is possible to
make vertical operations on a table by selecting some subset of the Columns or even by
embellishing the table with extra columns produced by Functions acting on existing columns.
e.g. SELECT EMPNO, ENAME, SAL
FROM EMP;
Selects only the EMPNO, ENAME and SAL columns;
e.g. SELECT EMPNO, ENAME, SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
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Selects only the EMPNO, ENAME and SAL columns from those rows where the DEPTNO is
30.
3.5.1 Eliminating Column Duplicates
Sometimes when certain columns are selected, Duplicate values appear:
SELECT JOB
FROM EMP;
If it is required that duplicates are not to be repeated, then the DISTINCT option will eliminate
them.
e.g. SELECT DISTINCT JOB
FROM EMP;
3.5.2 Creating Column Aliases
When queries are displayed, ORACLE normally uses the column names that have been defined
in the table. However, it is possible to rename the column if desired.
e.g. SELECT EMPNO, ENAME EMPLOYEE_NAME,
SAL SALARY
FROM EMP;
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This leaves EMPNO with the same name but renames ENAME as EMPLOYEE_NAME and
SAL as SALARY.
Note that column names can be specified in any order even an order different to the defined
order in the table. Displayed results will be in the order defined in the QUERY.
4. JOINING TABLES
4.1 Introduction
In the Relational approach to data, rows in different tables are related by having identical

values in certain columns of the tables. For example, rows in the EMP table with DEPTNO =
30 are related to the row in the DEPTNO table with DEPTNO = 30. The technique of relating
different tables is called JOINING.
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP, DEPT
WHERE EMP.DEPTNO = DEPT.DEPTNO;
The WHERE clause is responsible for the JOIN. The result is a table with all the columns of
both original tables.
Note that in order to avoid confusion between the DEPTNO column of the EMP table and the
DEPTNO column of the DEPT table we qualify the appropriate DEPTNO by putting the name
of the owning table and a fullstop (.) at the front. e.g., EMP.DEPTNO.
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP, DEPT
WHERE SAL > 1000
AND EMP.DEPTNO = DEPT.DEPTNO;
This joins the EMP and DEPT tables as before, but also selects only the rows where the SAL
value is greater than 1000. Note that the order of the two WHERE conditions is irrelevant.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, DNAME
FROM EMP, DEPT
WHERE SAL > 1000
AND EMP.DEPTNO = DEPT.DEPTNO;
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This is the same as the previous query except that only the ENAME and DNAME columns are
chosen.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, DNAME
FROM EMP, DEPT
WHERE SAL > 1000
AND EMP.DEPTNO = DEPT.DEPTNO
ORDER BY ENAME;
This query is the same as the previous one except that the rows are displayed in ascending
order of ENAME.
4.2 Types of Join
All the examples of the previous section are of the join type known as the EQUIJOIN. This is
because the connecting of the tables is based on values in the tables being EQUAL. However,
other types of join exist which connect tables on the basis of values in the tables having
relationships other than equality.
e.g. SELECT X.ENAME, X.SAL, X.JOB, Y.ENAME, Y.SAL, Y.JOB
FROM EMP X, EMP Y
WHERE X.SAL > Y.SAL
AND Y.ENAME = ‘JONES’;
This query is designed to find the salaries and jobs of employees who earn more than JONES.
It is quite complex and invokes a number of new concepts. Its main point is to define a
sensible query involving a join which is not an Equijoin. In this case we have a GREATER
THAN join (i.e. X.SAL > Y.SAL).
Another idea here is the concept of joining a table with itself i.e. the EMP table with itself.
The way that is done is to form two distinct copies of EMP which are called X and Y in this
example. The definition of the copies is achieved via the FROM EMP X, EMP Y statement.
Note that we can qualify the column names in the SELECT phrase, i.e. X.ENAME, X.SAL,
Y.ENAME. Joins can be defined for other operators, e.g. <,>=,!= etc.
Outer Joins
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The above examples are of the type known as INNERJOINS. In an innerjoin, if a row in one
of the joining tables does not satisfy the condition, it will not appear in the result. e.g., in the
EMP table there is no employee with a DEPTNO of 40. This means that the result of
SELECT DEPT.DEPTNO, DNAME, JOB, ENAME
FROM DEPT,EMP
WHERE DEPT.DEPTNO=EMP.DEPTNO
AND (DEPT.DEPTNO = 30 OR DEPT.DEPTNO = 40);
would only contain a row with DEPTNO = 30. We might, however, want to record the fact that
DEPTNO = 40 is the number of the OPERATIONS department. In order to include a row with
DEPTNO = 40 we must use an outer join. This is denoted by the (+) symbol. The query then
becomes:
SELECT DEPT.DEPTNO, DNAME, JOB, ENAME
FROM DEPT,EMP
WHERE DEPT.DEPTNO=EMP.DEPTNO (+)
AND (DEPT.DEPTNO = 30 OR DEPT.DEPTNO = 40);
Note that the EMP.DEPTNO is the term with the (+) sign. This indicates that the EMP table is
the one that might not have a DEPTNO value.
5. HANDLING DATA TYPES
ORACLE supports Number, Character, Date and Null data types. The following sections
describe how the data types are handled.
5.1 Handling Numbers
5.1.1 Displaying Numbers
Number values are normally displayed with as many digits as necessary for accuracy up to the
standard width of 10 digits. The standard format can be altered by use of a FORMAT model in
a COLUMN command. The structure of a COLUMN command is:
COLUMN columnname FORMAT formatmodel;
Some formatmodels are:
FORMAT VALUE DISPLAYS AS EXPLANATION
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999.99 56.478 56.48 Rounds to 2 decimal places
999v99 56.478 5648 Decimal point not displayed
9,999 8410 8,410 Comma separates thousands
9,999 39 639 No comma if no thousands
99999 07 607 Leading zeros normally absent
09999 07 00607 Leading zeros fill format
9999 5609 5609 Minus sign normally precedes
9999MI 5609 5609 Minus sign follows number
9999PR 5609 <5609> Negative numbers parenthesised
B999 0 Zero values displayed as blanks
B999 564 564 No effect if value not zero
99.99 124.98 ##.## Value too large for format
$99.99 45.23 $45.23 Dollar sign displayed
$99.99PR 45.23 <$45.23> Formats may be combined
Note that COLUMN is an SQLPLUS command. The default value of a column can be retrieved
after a different definition by using COLUMN <column name> CLEAR.
5.1.2 Arithmetic Expressions
Arithmetic expressions involving number column names, number values and the Arithmetic
Operators (+, , *, /) are allowed.
To display the result of an arithmetic expression, simply include it in a SELECT command as if
it were an ordinary column. The column will be given a name identical to the expression
unless given another.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SAL, COMM, SAL+COMM
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB=‘SALESMAN’
produces:
ENAME SAL COMM SAL+COMM

ALLEN $1,600 300 1900
WARD $1,250 500 1750
MARTIN $1,250 1400 2650
TURNER $1,500 0 1500
Note that although SAL+COMM is not a column in the EMP table, it is displayed as if it were.
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You may use arithmetic expressions in the condition of a WHERE clause.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SAL, COMM
FROM EMP
WHERE COMM > 0.25 * SAL;
Lists employees whose Commission is greater than 25% of their Salary.
You may use arithmetic expressions in ORDER BY clauses.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SAL, COMM, SAL+COMM
FROM EMP
ORDER BY SAL+COMM DESC;
Arithmetic expressions can be complex, i.e. with several operators.
5.1.3 Special Arithmetic Expressions
SQL has a number of special arithmetic expressions.
FUNCTION EXAMPLE RESULT

ABS ABS(BALANCE) Absolute value of BALANCE
GREATEST GREATEST(SAL,COMM) Largest value of SAL and COMM
LEAST LEAST(SAL,COMM) Smallest value of SAL and COMM
ROUND ROUND(SAL,2) SAL rounded to 2 digits after
decimal point
TO_NUMBER TO_NUMBER(GRADEPT) Converts a CHAR value
containing a number to a number
value
TRUNC TRUNC(SAL,2) SAL truncated to 2 digits after
the decimal point
Some examples are now shown which illustrate the use of some of the above functions.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, GREATEST (SAL,COMM)
FROM EMP;
For each employee, the name and value of Salary or Commission, whichever is the greater, is
displayed.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SAL, SAL/22, TRUNC(SAL/22,0), TRUNC(SAL/22,2)
FROM EMP
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WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
For the Department with DEPTNO = 30 the employee name and various truncated displays of
the Salary are shown. The division by 22 is because the daily salary is being calculated and it
is assumed that there are 22 working days in the month.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SAL, SAL/22, ROUND (SAL/22,0), ROUND(SAL/22,2)
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
This is the same as the previous query, except that some Rounded display formats are shown.
5.1.4 Group Functions
The Arithmetic Functions of the previous section are operating on EACH row of a query.
However, sometimes we might want to obtain information about GROUPS of rows. e.g.,
maximum salary for each JOB or the average COMMISSION of SALESMEN. In order to
achieve this, SQL provides GROUP functions

AVG AVG(SAL) Average value of SAL
COUNT COUNT(COMM) Number of non NULL values in
the COMM column
MAX MAX(SAL) Highest value of SAL
MIN MIN(SAL) Lowest value of SAL
SUM SUM(COMM) Sum of values of COMM
e.g. SELECT SUM(SAL),SUM (COMM)
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB=‘SALESMAN’;
Finds the total salary and total commission of salespeople.
e.g. SELECT 12* AVG(SAL+COMM)
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB=‘SALESMAN’;
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Finds the average Annual salary, plus commission of all salespeople.
e.g. SELECT MAX(SAL),MIN(SAL),MAX(SAL)MIN(SAL)
FROM EMP;
Finds the highest and lowest salaries (of all employees) and the difference between them.
e.g. SELECT COUNT(COMM)
FROM EMP;
Finds the number of nonnull commissions.
e.g. SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT JOB)
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
Finds the number of DIFFERENT jobs held by the employees of department 30. The
DISTINCT phrase eliminates duplicates before the count is made.
e.g. SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
Counts the number of employees in department 30. Count(*) counts all the rows satisfying the
WHERE clause.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, JOB, SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE SAL =
(SELECT MAX(SAL)
FROM EMP);
This is a special type of query. The SELECT clause in the brackets is a SUBQUERY. Subqueries
will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 6. The subquery SELECT returns a single value,
namely the largest value in the SAL column of EMP. The query them becomes find the name,
job and salary of the employee(s) whose salary is equal to the largest salary.
5.1.5 The GROUP BY phrase
Sometimes we might want to find out information about several groups within a table. e.g., we
might want to find the average salary for each job. This could be achieved by:
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e.g. SELECT JOB, AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
GROUP BY JOB;
Note that the EMP table is split into groups by JOB and the AVG is applied to each JOB group.
e.g. SELECT DEPTNO, 12*AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB NOT IN (‘MANAGER’, ’PRESIDENT’)
GROUP BY DEPTNO;
Finds the average Annual salary of the nonmanagerial staff in each department.
e.g. SELECT DEPTNO, JOB, COUNT(*), 12*AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
GROUP BY DEPTNO, JOB;
In this case, the groups are for each job within each department. The number of employees
and the average group salary for each job within each department are found.
5.1.5.1 The HAVING clause
Having split a table up into a number of groups of interest, sometimes we might only want to
look at some of these groups. The selection of these groups can be achieved by using the
HAVING phrase.
e.g. SELECT JOB, COUNT(*), 12*AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
GROUP BY JOB
HAVING COUNT(*) >2;
This query finds the number of employees and the Annual average salary for all JOB groups
with more than two employees.
You can have a WHERE clause and a HAVING clause in the same query in which case the
order of operations is:
1. the WHERE clause is applied to select rows
2. the groups are formed and calculations made
3. the HAVING clause is applied to select the groups
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e.g. SELECT DEPTNO
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB = ‘CLERK’
GROUP BY DEPTNO
HAVING COUNT(*) >= 2;
Lists all the departments with at least two clerks.
If you want to give a computed column a label other than the original expression, it can be
done in the same way as for uncomputed columns.
e.g. SELECT JOB, AVG(SAL) AVERAGE_SALARY
FROM EMP
GROUP BY JOB;
Renames the AVG(SAL) as AVERAGE_SALARY. If two separate words are required then
replace the AVERAGE_SALARY with ‘AVERAGE SALARY’. The quotes ensure that the two
words are displayed together.
5.2 Handling CHAR values
Columns of the Character data type can be redefined using the COLUMN statement, which, as
before, has the structure:
COLUMN <column name> FORMAT formatmodel;
The format model this time is merely A followed by the number of characters, e.g. A25.
Once set, a column format will stay in effect until you redefine it or exit from SQLPLUS.
A column format can be reset by using COLUMN columnname CLEAR.
5.2.1 Concatenation
The only operation that can be carried out on char fields is CONCATENATION. This is where
two or more fields are joined together. The CONCATENATION operator is | |.
e.g. SELECT DNAME | | ‘ ‘ | | LOC DEPARTMENTS
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FROM DEPT;
This results in:
DEPARTMENTS
ACCOUNTING NEW YORK
RESEARCH DALLAS
SALES CHICAGO
OPERATIONS BOSTON
i.e., the value in the DNAME field is concatenated to blank space, minus sign, blank space
concatenated to the value in the LOC field and the new column thus formed is called
DEPARTMENTS.
5.2.2 An Apostrophe in a char constant
Since an apostrophe is used to denote a char constant, e.g. ‘fred’, if you want to denote an
apostrophe in the middle of a char constant, you must in fact use two apostrophes. e.g. in
order to denote fred’s, you must use ‘fred’’s’.
5.2.3 Char Functions
Some common char functions are:
DECODE DECODE(GRADE, ‘A’,4,’B’,3, Translates letter grades in
‘C’,2,’D’,1,0) the GRADE column into
grade points
INITCAP INITCAP(ENAME) Capitalises the first letter

of each word
INSTR INSTR(LOC,’ ‘) Returns the position of

the first blank space in
the location
LENGTH LENGTH(ENAME) Length of the employee’s

name in characters
LOWER LOWER(ENAME) Converts an employee’s

name to lowercase
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SOUNDEX SOUNDEX(‘DES MOINES’) Returns a value that
represents the spoken
sound of ‘Des Moines”
SUBSTR SUBSTR(GRADE,2,1) Two characters of GRADE

from the first character
UPPER UPPER(ENAME) Translates lowercase

letters in ENAME to
capital letters
e.g. SELECT ENAME, JOB
DECODE(JOB,’CLERK’,1,’MANAGER’,3,’PRESIDENT’,5,2)JOB_CLASS
FROM EMP;
Displays ENAME and JOB and a new column JOB_CLASS. The value of the JOB_CLASS

column depends upon the value of the JOB column. If the JOB value is ‘CLERK’ then
JOB_CLASS has the value 1, if JOB is ‘MANAGER’ then JOB_CLASS is 3, if JOB is
‘PRESIDENT’ then JOB_CLASS is 5, else JOB_CLASS is 2.
Note that DECODE can return a value of any type. e.g., it would have been possible to return a
date or a decimal number if the JOB was ‘CLERK’ etc.
e.g. SELECT INITCAP(ENAME) NAME, JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE UPPER(ENAME) = ‘WARD’;
The UPPER(ENAME) converts all the characters of the ENAME field to uppercase ready for
comparing with ‘WARD’. This means that options such as ‘Ward’, ‘waRd’, ‘ward’ etc. will all
match. Then, for display purposes, the INITCAP(ENAME) function capitalises the first letter
of ENAME and converts all other letters to lowercase.
e.g. SELECT ENAME
FROM EMP
WHERE SOUNDEX(ENAME) = SOUNDEX(‘SMYTH’);
Selects employees with names sounding like SMYTH.
e.g. SELECT ‘EMPLOYEE’ ENAME
FROM EMP;
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Displays the word ‘EMPLOYEE’ as the first column of each row. The column has no heading.
5.3 Handling Date Values
5.3.1 Standard and Alternate Date Formats
The default or Standard date format is like 12JAN85. This format is written:
DDMONYY.
You can convert the date to a different format using the TO_CHAR function. The structure of
the function is:
TOCHAR(datevalue, formatmodel)
Thus, to convert from 12JAN85 to 01/12/83 you would use the function
TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,’MM/DD/YY’) where it is assumed that the original date is held in
HIREDATE.
There are other possible date formats, as follows:
DD.MM.YYYY
MONTH DD,YYYY
DY DD MON YY
Some common formats are:
ELEMENT MEANING
YYYY or SYYYY YEAR; ‘S’ prefixes ‘BC’ date with sign ()
YYY YY or Y Last 3,2 or1 digits ofYEAR
SYEAR or YEAR YEAR, spelled out;’S’ prefixes ‘BC’ date with ()
BC or AD BC/AD indicator
B.C. or A.D. BC/AD indicator with full stops
Q Quarter of year
MM Month
MONTH or MON Name of month or three letter abbreviation
DDD DD OR D Day of year, month or week
DAY or DY Name of day or three letter abbreviation
AM or PM Meridian indicator
A.M. or P.M. Meridian indicator with full stops
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HH or HH12 Hour of day (112)
HH24 Hour of day (023)
MI Minute
SS Second
/ . , etc Punctuation is reproduced in the result
“...” Quoted string is reproduced in the result
The suffixes below may be added to the codes above
TH Ordinal number, (e.g. “DDTH” for “4th’)
SP Spelled out number, (eg “DDSP for “FOUR”)
SPTH to THSP Spelled out ordinal number, (e.g. “DDSPTH for “FOURTH”)
Capitalisation in a spelled out word follows capitalisation in the corresponding format

element.
e.g. “DAY” produces output, such: “MONDAY”, “Day” produces “Monday”, “day” produces “monday” etc.
5.3.2 Times of Day
Oracle Dates also include the time of day. In order to display the time, merely include it in the
format model
e.g. COLUMN HIRE_DATE FORMAT A30;
SELECT ENAME,
TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,’MONTH DD,YYYY HH:MIPM’) HIRE_DATE
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 20;
Try it and see! Note that if in a date value, no time is specified then the default value given is
12:00 AM.
5.3.3 Date Arithmetic
The arithmetic operations allowed on date fields are:
date+number adds a number of days to a date, producing a date
datenumber subtracts a number of days from a fate, producing a date
datedate subtracts one date from another, giving a number of days
25
e.g. SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE, HIREDATE+365 REVIEWDATE
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 20;
Displays the ‘Reviewdate’ which is defined as 365 days after the Hiredate
5.3.4 SYSDATE
There is a special column called SYSDATE, which returns the value of the current date and
time. It is NOT an actual column in a Table and is thus a pseudocolumn.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, SYSDATE TODAY
FROM EMP;
Displays the current date for each employee.
5.3.5 Date Functions
There are a number of builtin functions involving Dates. Some of them are:
FUNCTION EXAMPLE
RESULT
ADD_MONTHS ADD_MONTHS(d,n)
date d plus n months
GREATEST GREATEST (D1,D2)
later of D1 and D2
LEAST LEAST (D1, D2)
earlier of D1 and D2
LASTDAY LAST_DAY(HIREDATE)
last day of month containing
HIREDATE
MONTHS_BETWEEN MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE,HIREDATE)
months between HIREDATE and
today
NEXT_DAY NEXT_DAY(HIREDATE,’FRIDAY’)
date of first Friday after HIREDATE
ROUND ROUND(HIREDATE) rounds HIREDATE to the nearest
whole day
TO_CHAR TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,’MM/DD/YY’)
converts a date value to a char
value. The format of the char
value is determined by the
specified format
model. Default format used if 2nd
argument absent
26
TO_DATE TO_DATE(CHARDATE,’MM/DD/YY’)
converts a char value containing
a date to a date value. The char
value is interpreted according
to the specified format.
Some Examples of Using Dates
1) Find the review dates of employees hired in the last year for Dept 20, assuming that the
reviewdate is a year after the hiredate.
e.g. COLUMN HIREDATE A9
COLUMN TODAY A9
COLUMN REVIEWDATE A10
SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE, SYSDATE TODAY, HIREDATE+365,
REVIEWDATE
FROM EMP
WHERE HIREDATE + 365 > SYSDATE
AND DEPTNO = 20;
This gives:
ENAME HIREDATE TODAY REVIEWDATE

SCOTT 15MAY85 10DEC85 15MAY86
ADAMS 18JUN85 10DEC85 18JUN86
Assume that today is 10th Dec 1985.
2) Calculate the number of days until the review
e.g. COLUMN DAYS_TO_REVIEW A14
SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE, SYSDATE TODAY,
HIREDATE+365 SYSDATE DAYS_TO_REVIEW,
HIREDATE+365 REVIEWDATE
FROM EMP
WHERE HIREDATE+365 > SYSDATE
AND DEPTNO=20;
This gives:
ENAME HIREDATE TODAY DAYS_TO_REVIEW REVIEWDATE

SCOTT 15MAY85 10DEC85 155.985995370370 15MAY86
3703703703703703
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ADAMS 18JUN85 10DEC85 189.986030092592 16JUN86
9259259259259259
Note that the examples work if there are 365 days in a year. The decimal fraction for
DAYS_TO_REVIEW is unreadable. These points can be corrected by:
e.g. SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE, SYSDATE TODAY,
ROUND(ADD_MONTHS(HIREDATE,12)SYSDATE) DAYS_TO_REVIEW
ADD_MONTHS(HIREDATE,12) REVIEWDATE
FROM EMP
WHERE ADD_MONTHS (HIREDATE,12)> SYSDATE
AND DEPTNO=20;
3) Suppose reviews are not exactly one year after the hiredate. Suppose that reviews are on
the first Friday after the employee has been working for a year and that rises are given on the
last day of the month of the review. NEXT_DAY and LAST_DAY can be used to calculate both
of these dates.
e.g. COLUMN RAISEDATE FORMAT A9;
SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE,
NEXT_DAY(ADD_MONTHS(HIREDATE,12),’FRIDAY’) REVIEWDATE,
LAST_DAY(NEXT_DAY(ADD_MONTHS(HIREDATE,12),’FRIDAY’) )
RAISEDATE
FROM EMP
WHERE ADD_MONTHS (HIREDATE,12)>SYSDATE
AND DEPTNO = 20;
This gives:
ENAME HIREDATE REVIEWDATE RAISEDATE

SCOTT 15MAY85 16MAY86 31MAY86
ADAMS 18JUN85 20JUN86 30JUN86
Using dates in SQL commands
As well as in the SELECT clause you may use dates in other parts of SQL statements. in fact,
you can use a date value anywhere that you use a number or a char value, i.e. in WHERE,
ORDER BY and GROUP BY clauses. This is demonstrated through the following examples.
1) SELECT ENAME, HIREDATE
FROM EMP
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WHERE HIREDATE BETWEEN ‘4JAN84’ AND ‘15APR84’
ORDER BY HIREDATE;
2) SELECT TO_CHAR (HIREDATE,’”Q”Q YYYY’) HIRE_DATE, COUNT(*)
FROM EMP
GROUP BY TO_CHAR (HIREDATE,’YYYY “Q”Q’);
Note that this example counts the employees hired in each quarter of each year.
5.4 Handling Null Values
A Null value is different from zero or blank. It is used to illustrate that a particular data field
has not got a value in it yet, or that a value in that field would be inappropriate. e.g., in the
EMP table, only Salesmen have values in the Commission field as only salesmen get
commission. The empty commission field entries have Null values in them.
Null Conditions
Comparisons can be made with Null fields by using IS NULL, IS NOT NULL
e.g. Find the names of employees who are NOT entitled to commission.
SELECT ENAME
FROM EMP
WHERE COMM IS NULL;
e.g. Find the names of employees who are entitled to commission.
SELECT ENAME
FROM EMP
WHERE COMM IS NOT NULL;
ORDER BY with NULL values
If the column involved in the ORDER BY has Null values then the tuples with the Null values
will appear first, whether the order is to be Ascending or Descending
Null values in Expressions and Functions
If a function or expression involves a column that contains a Null value, then the result is also
Null.
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e.g. If we wanted to form a column SAL+COMM then those tuples with Null values for COMM
will cause a value of Null for SAL+COMM
e.g. If we applied COUNT(COMM) then the COUNT function would return the number of non
Null values.
The Null Value function NVL
The form of the NVL function is
NVL(EXPRESSION, NONNULL VALUE)
e.g. NVL(COMM,0)
would replace each null value of COMM with the value 0
e.g. NVL(HIREDATE,’31DEC86’)
would replace each null value of HIREDATE with the value ‘31DEC86’
This is a useful feature, enabling us to include nullvalued entries in our queries.
e.g. SELECT AVG(COMM), AVG(SAL+NVL(COMM,0))
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
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6. SUBQUERIES
A subquery is a query contained in a WHERE clause. It provides you with results that are
needed to complete the main query. Subqueries are useful when you want to select rows from
a table with a condition that depends upon data in the table itself.
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB=
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME=‘JONES’);
The subquery is contained in brackets. This subquery returns a single value, in this case
MANAGER.
The main query now becomes:
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB=‘MANAGER’;
If the subquery had returned no values or more than one value, then an error message would
have been displayed.
Using ANY and ALL
Sometimes we want to use subqueries which return more than one value. In this situation we
use the ANY or ALL options.
e.g. SELECT DISTINCT SAL, JOB, ENAME, DEPTNO
FROM EMP
WHERE SAL > ANY
(SELECT SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30);
Again, the subquery is contained in brackets. This query returns a set of all SAL values for
employees in Dept 30.
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The main query is now about looking at the EMP table for rows where the SAL value is greater
than ANY of the subquery set. That is any row where the SAL value is greater than the
smallest value of the subquery set.
The DISTINCT clause is necessary in order to avoid rows being chosen many times. e.g., the
PRESIDENT KING has a salary of $5000. Without the DISTINCT clause, the PRESIDENT row
would be returned every time that it was compared with the subquery set, since the
President’s Sal is greater than ALL the subquery SAL values.
e.g. SELECT SAL, JOB, ENAME, DEPTNO
FROM EMP
WHERE SAL> ALL
(SELECT SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO=30);
The subquery is as before and returns the same set of SAL values. This time, however, the
main query returns those rows with SAL value greater than ALL the subquery set. Note that
there is no need for the DISTINCT clause this time.
ANY and ALL can be used with the operators ( =, <>, >, >=, <, <=).
Using IN and NOT IN
There are options IN, which is equivalent to =ANY and NOT IN, which is equivalent to
<>ALL.
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 10
AND JOB IN
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30);
This lists the names and jobs of anybody in DEPT 10 who has the same job as anybody in
DEPT 30.
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 10
AND JOB NOT IN
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(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 30);
This lists the name and job of anybody in DEPT 10 with a job not done by anybody in DEPT 30.
Subqueries that return more than one column
So far, subqueries have returned a set of values based on one column only. However,
sometimes it would be useful to return groups of values, i.e. values for more than one column.
e.g. List employees with same job and salary as FORD.
FROM EMP
WHERE (JOB,SAL)=
(SELECT JOB, SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘FORD’);
Multiple Subqueries
It is possible to have combinations of subqueries separated by AND or OR.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, JOB, DEPTNO, SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB IN
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘JONES’)
OR SAL >=
(SELECT SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘FORD’)
ORDER BY JOB, SAL;
This lists employees with either the same job as Jones or a salary greater than or equal to Ford’s
salary, in order of job and salary.
You can also put subqueries within subqueries with up to 16 levels.
FROM EMP
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WHERE DEPTNO = 10
AND JOB IN
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO IN
(SELECT DEPTNO
FROM DEPT
WHERE DNAME = ‘SALES’));
This lists employees in Dept 10 with the same job as anyone in the Sales dept.
Note
A query or subquery may be composed of two or more queries with the operators UNION,
INTERSECT and MINUS.
UNION returns all distinct rows returned by EITHER of the queries it applies to.
INTERSECT returns all rows returned by BOTH of the queries it applies to.
MINUS returns all rows returned by the PRECEDING query but NOT by the FOLLOWING
query.
FROM EMP
WHERE SAL IN
(SELECT SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘SCOTT’
UNION
SELECT SAL
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘WARD’);
This lists employees whose salary is equal to that of Scott or Ward.
When applying the operators UNION, INTERSECT and MINUS for queries on different tables,
the results of these queries must be ‘unioncompatible’. In the context of SQL, this means that
corresponding columns from the different results must match in both number of columns and
type of column. Type does not imply that they must be of the same length, and you cannot use
columns of type LONG.
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You can also use ORDER BY in the overall query. The ORDER BY must occur once only at the
end. Since corresponding columns in different tables might have different names, the ORDER
BY refers to the appropriate column by its order in the column list.
e.g. Consider two similar tables, PROJ_A, PROJ_B with appropriate columns.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, EMPNO, DEPT
FROM PROJ_A
UNION
SELECT EMPNAME, EMPNUM, DEPT
FROM PROJ_B
ORDER BY 2;
This lists employee details of employees who are in PROJ_A or PROJ_B, or both. The list is
ordered by column 2 (i.e. the employee number column).
Subqueries can refer to more than one table.
e.g. SELECT ENAME, LOC, JOB
FROM EMP, DEPT
WHERE LOC = ‘CHICAGO’
AND EMP.DEPTNO = DEPT.DEPTNO
AND JOB IN
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = ‘ALLEN’)
ORDER BY ENAME;
This lists the employees located in Chicago with the same job as ALLEN, in ENAME order.
Correlated Subqueries
In previous examples each subquery was carried out once for the whole query. However, it is
possible to construct a query where the subquery is carried out once for each row of the main
query.
e.g. SELECT DEPTNO, ENAME, SAL
FROM EMP X
WHERE SAL >
(SELECT AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
WHERE X.DEPTNO = DEPTNO)
ORDER BY DEPTNO;
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This lists all employees who earn more than the average salary of employees in their own
departments (in dept order).
Note the ALIAS table name X for EMP. This means that X is a copy of the table EMP for use in
the main query. There is another table EMP for the subquery. What happens here is that table
X is scanned. The condition applied to each tuple of X is to check the SAL to see if it is greater
than the average SAL calculated on the EMP table of the subquery. The average is taken for
those rows where the DEPTNO is equal to current the DEPTNO value of the main query. This
means that the subquery is carried out once for each row of the X table.
EXISTS
A conditional expression EXISTS (subquery) can be written which returns 'true' if the
subquery returns at least one row and 'false' if there are no rows returned.
e.g. SELECT JOB, ENAME, DEPTNO
FROM EMP X
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE X.EMPNO = MGR);
This lists information about employees who have at least one other employee reporting to
them.
NOT EXISTS
A conditional expression NOT EXISTS (subquery) can be written which returns 'false' if the
subquery returns at least one row and 'true' if there are no rows returned.
e.g. SELECT JOB, ENAME, DEPTNO
FROM EMP X
WHERE NOT EXISTS
(SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE X.EMPNO = MGR);
This lists information about employees who do not have any employees reporting to them.
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7. CREATING, DROPPING and RENAMING TABLES
Previous chapters have dealt with Data Manipulation in the form of retrieval operations. This
chapter considers Data Definition. Since the only data structure is the table, data definition
involves the definition of tables.
The SQL statement which does this is the CREATE TABLE statement. The format of the
CREATE TABLE statement is
CREATE TABLE tablename
(columndefinition, columndefinition, ...... columndefinition);
where columndefinition = columnname columnformat [NOT NULL].
e.g. CREATE TABLE DOCTOR
(DOCTOR_NO CHAR(4) NOT NULL,
DOCTOR_NAME CHAR(20),
DATE_OF_BIRTH DATE,
FEE_RATE NUMBER(6,2));
This creates a table with 4 columns. The DOCTOR_NO column is made up of at most 4
characters and NULL values are not allowed in this column. The column for DOCTOR_NAME
is up to 20 characters. The DATE_OF_BIRTH is of data type Date and the FEE_RATE column
has at most 6 numeric digits of which 2 are after a decimal point.
Specifying primary and foreign keys
At the time a table is created it is possible to define both primary and foreign keys. Let us
assume that two tables are to be created (TEMP1 and TEMP2) which participate in a foreign
key relationship. The CREATE TABLE command could be used in the following way:
CREATE TABLE TEMP1
(COL1 CHAR(5),
COL2 NUMBER(4),
COL3 CHAR(10),
CONSTRAINT PK_FIRSTCOL PRIMARY KEY (COL1),
CONSTRAINT FK_COL FOREIGN KEY (COL3) REFERENCES TEMP2(COL1));
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CREATE TABLE TEMP2
(COL1 CHAR(10),
COL2 DATE,
CONSTRAINT PK_TEMP2 PRIMARY KEY (COL1));
It is also possible to set up both priamry and foriegn keys that are made up of more than just
one column.
7.1 Data types
The data types supported for columns are:
Data Type May contain
CHAR(w) This is a fixed length data type where char values consisting
of upper and lower case letters numbers and special characters
(+, , %, $, &, etc.). w is the width which is the maximum length
in characters. w must not exceed 240.
VARCHAR2(w) This is a variable length data type where char values consisting
of upper and lower case letters numbers and special characters
(+, , %, $, &, etc.). w is the width which is the maximum length
in characters. w must not exceed 480. Here varying sizes of data
can be stored and only the necessary amount of storage is allocated.
NUMBER number values consisting of the digits 09 with an optional sign
(+ or ) and a decimal point. Values may be 40 digits wide.
NUMBER(w) numbers up to w digits wide. w may not exceed 105. The
number of significant digits may not exceed 40
even if w is greater than 40.
NUMBER(w,d) d of the digits are to the right of the decimal point.
DATE date values from Jan 1, 4712 BC to Dec 31, 4712 AD.
LONG similar to CHAR but values may be up to 65,535 characters
long. No more than one LONG column can be defined for
a table.
38
You may sometimes wish to forbid the possibility of an attribute of a table having NULL
values (e.g. if it is a KEY column: this can be achieved by the use of the option NOT NULL
which has been illustrated in the previous example. Any attempt to put a NULL value into a
column which has been assigned the NOT NULL property will result in a SQLPLUS error
message.
Dropping Tables
As well as creating new tables you may wish to get rid of old ones. This can be achieved by
using the DROP TABLE statement. The general form of this is:
DROP TABLE <tablename>;
e.g. DROP TABLE EMP;
Renaming Tables
Another useful facility is the ability to change the names of existing tables. This is done by the
RENAME statement. The general form of this is:
RENAME <old name>
TO <new name>;
e.g. RENAME EMP
TO EMPLOYEES;
8. INSERTION, UPDATING and DELETION
This chapter deals with the adding, changing and removing of values with respect to a table. It
also considers problems of integrity.
8.1 INSERT
The format of the INSERT statement is:
INSERT INTO tablename
39
VALUES (list of data values)
e.g. INSERT INTO EMP
VALUES (7954, 'CARTER', 'CLERK', 7698, '7APR93', 1000, NULL, 30);
...... adds a new row into EMP.
e.g. INSERT INTO EMP (EMPNO, ENAME, HIREDATE, DEPTNO, SAL)
VALUES (7655, 'WILSON', '22APR93', 30, 1500);
...... adds values into the chosen columns only. Any columns not listed will have NULL values
added. An attempt to put NULL into a NOT NULL field will cause an error.
8.1.1 Inserting Date Values
Date formats
When a value is added into a date column it must be in standard date format, i.e. DDMONYY
(01JAN93). A function (TO_DATE) is available to convert any date in another format to
standard format. TO_DATE has two arguments: the first is the date value that you wish to add
and the second is the format of that date value.
VALUES (7657, 'MASON', 'ANALYST', 7566,
TO_DATE('4/24/93', 'MM/DD/YY), 3400, NULL, 20);
....... takes a date in the form 4/24/93 and converts it to the standard form before insertion.
Time of Day
If you want to put in a time of day as well as a date then use:
VALUES (7658, 'CHAN', 'ANALYST', 7566,
TO_DATE('3MAY93 9:30', 'DDMONYY HH:MI'), 3000, NULL, 20);
8.1.2 Copying rows between tables.
40
It is possible to copy rows between tables (i.e. from one table to another) by using a subquery
in the INSERT statement.
e.g. INSERT INTO BONUS (ENAME, JOB, SAL, COMM)
SELECT ENAME, JOB, SAL, COMM
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB = 'MANAGER'
OR COMM > 0.25 * SAL;
...... copies rows into the BONUS table where the employee is a Manager or the commission is
more than a quarter of the salary.
You can create and insert at the same time by using:
e.g. CREATE TABLE BONUS (ENAME, JOB, SAL, COMM)
AS (SELECT ENAME, JOB, SAL, COMM
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB = 'MANAGER'
OR COMM > 0.25 * SAL);
Note that BONUS must not already exist as either a table or a synonym.
8.1.3 Multiple Insertion
When more than one row is to be inserted, the symbol & may be used before each attribute in
the VALUES clause to obviate repeating the INSERT
e.g. INSERT INTO EMP VALUES (&EMPNO, '&ENAME', '&HIREDATE',
&DEPTNO, &SAL);
When the INSERT is run, enter the data for the first row at the prompt. Then use the run
symbol '/' to repeat the process for each successive row.
8.2 UPDATE
41
Updating values in a table is achieved using the UPDATE statement. The format of the
UPDATE command is:
UPDATE tablename
SET field = value, field = value, ......
WHERE condition;
e.g. UPDATE EMP
SET JOB = 'SALESMAN', HIREDATE = SYSDATE, SAL = 1.1 * SAL
WHERE ENAME = WILSON;
....... assigns Wilson to the sales staff and gives him/her a 10% rise in salary.
Updating can be carried on several rows at a time:
e.g. UPDATE EMP
SET SAL = SAL * 1.15
WHERE (JOB = 'ANALYST' OR JOB = 'CLERK')
AND DEPTNO = 20;
....... gives a 15% rise to all Analysts and Clerks in department 20.
UPDATE statements can also include subqueries:
e.g. UPDATE EMP
SET SAL = SAL * 1.05
WHERE ENAME IN
(SELECT ENAME
FROM BONUS);
....... gives a 5% rise to anybody entitled to a bonus.
e.g. UPDATE EMP
SET SAL =
(SELECT 1.1 * AVG(SAL)
FROM EMP
WHERE JOB = 'SALESMAN')
WHERE JOB = 'SALESMAN';
....... sets all salesmen's salaries to 110% of the average salesman salary.
42
8.3 DELETE
Deleting information from tables is achieved using the DELETE statement. The format of the
DELETE statement is:
DELETE FROM tablename
WHERE condition;
e.g. DELETE FROM BONUS
WHERE ENAME = 'WARD';
....... deletes Ward from the bonus table.
Several rows may be deleted at once by a suitable WHERE clause which may include a
subquery if necessary.
e.g. DELETE FROM BONUS
WHERE JOB IN
(SELECT JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE ENAME = 'JONES');
....... deletes all employees from the BONUS table with the name job as Jones.
8.4 Committing database changes
When changes are made to the database tables they may or may not be made permanent. The
action of making changes permanent is known as COMMITTING. The default upon entering
SQLPLUS is that changes will not normally be made permanent until you exit from SQLPLUS
or you issue certain statements. (i.e. ALTER, AUDIT, CREATE, DISCONNECT, DROP, EXIT,
GRANT, NOAUDIT, QUIT, or REVOKE)
43
Thus in a normal situation when updates are deletes or inserts are made they will be visible if
you inspect the tables but can be 'undone' by the issue of a ROLLBACK statement. If you wish
to make changes permanent enter COMMIT.
It is possible to arrange things such that changes are committed as soon as they are carried out.
This can be achieved using the AUTOCOMMIT facility. The options are:
SQL> SET AUTOCOMMIT IMMEDIATE turns the autocommit on
SQL >SET AUTOCOMMIT ON turns the autocommit on
SQL> SET AUTOCOMMIT OFF turns autocommit off (default)
Note that after insertion of values into a table, the new records are not always committed. Be
safe by issuing a commit at the prompt.
9. MODIFYING A TABLE
Sometimes the definition of a table might become inappropriate. We look here at the way we
can make two changes to a table: enlarge a column, and add a column.
Enlarging a column
The format is
ALTER TABLE tablename
MODIFY (new columndefinition);
e.g. ALTER TABLE PROJ
MODIFY (BUDGET NUMBER(9,2));
...... changes the budget column to 9 digits with 2 decimal places.
You can change a format from NOT NULL to NULL but you can only change a column format
from NULL to NOT NULL if there are no null values in the appropriate column.
Adding a column
The format is
44
ALTER TABLE tablename
ADD (columndefinition);
e.g. ALTER TABLE EMP
ADD (PROJNO NUMBER);
The new column will appear to the right of existing columns and will initially have all of it's
values as NULL.
10. VIEWS
One of the most important facilities of a DBMS is the provision of user views. That is, the
provision of mechanisms that allow the 'subsetting' of the centralised data resource in order to
reflect individual perceptions of users.
The view facility provides a level of security against inadvertent or deliberate inspection of
sensitive data. Views can also help with complex query processing in that SQL statements can
be directed against views as opposed to the original tables.
10.1 Creating a view
The format for the view statement is:
CREATE VIEW viewname
AS query;
45
e.g. CREATE VIEW EMP10
AS SELECT EMPNO, ENAME, JOB
FROM EMP
WHERE DEPTNO = 10;
This defines a view of department 10 of the EMP table.
Note that. the query in the CREATE VIEW may be any valid query but MUST NOT contain an
ORDER BY clause. Any ordering must be carried out when the view is queried.
You may create views from already defined views.
View tables do not actually exist in the database. They are 'virtual tables'.
10.2 Querying a view
e.g. SELECT *
FROM EMP10;
........ displays the contents of the view EMP10.
FROM EMP10
WHERE EMPNO > 7800;
....... picks rows from the view.
When you change data in a base table the views which involve the updated rows/columns
reflect the changes made.
e.g. UPDATE EMP
SET JOB = 'ANALYST'
WHERE ENAME = 'MILLER';
....... changes Miller's job to analyst. If we now look at the view EMP10 we would see the

change of Miller's job to analyst.
10.3 Updating a view
46
It may or may not be possible to carry out update operations directly on a view. For a view to
be updatable the query in the CREATE VIEW statement must obey the following rules:
a) It must refer to only one table.
b) It does not contain a GROUP BY clause, a DISTINCT clause, a group function, or a reference
to the pseudo column ROWNUM.
You may delete rows from a view if a) and b) occur. You may insert (add) rows into a view if a)
and b) are satisfied and:
c) It contains no columns defined by expressions.
Thus in order to change Miller's job to clerk, we can use:
e.g. UPDATE EMP10
SET JOB = 'CLERK'
WHERE ENAME = 'MILLER';
10.4 Views of more than one table
A view which contains data from more than table can be created by using joins to connect the
tables,
e.g. CREATE VIEW PROJSTAFF (EMPLOYEE, PROJECT, PROJECT_NUMBER)
AS SELECT ENAME, PNAME, EMP.PROJNO
FROM EMP, PROJ
WHERE EMP.PROJNO = PROJ.PROJNO;
This creates a view called PROJSTAFF with the columns renamed as EMPLOYEE(was
ENAME), PROJECT(was PNAME) and PROJECT_NUMBER(was EMP.PROJNO).
e.g. SELECT EMPLOYEE, PROJECT
FROM PROJSTAFF
WHERE PROJECT_NUMBER = 101;
10.5 Using expressions and functions in views
In the creation of a view the query that defines it may contain derived columns obtained from
expressions on columns in the underlying tables.
47
e.g. CREATE VIEW PAY (NAME, MONTHLY, SAL, ANNUAL_SAL, DEPTNO)
AS SELECT ENAME, SAL, SAL*12, DEPTNO
FROM EMP;
....... creates a view called PAY with columns that are explicitly named in brackets.
In order to see how the view appears try a query on it:
e.g. SELECT *
FROM PAY
WHERE DEPTNO = 30;
10.6 Group functions in views
It is possible to define a view with a GROUP BY function in the defining query.
e.g. CREATE VIEW DEPT_COMP (DEPTNO, LOSAL, MEDSAL, HISAL,
TOTSAL)
AS SELECT DEPTNO, MIN(SAL), AVG(SAL), MAX(SAL),
SUM(SAL)
FROM EMP
GROUP BY DEPTNO;
If we wish to look at this view then the query:
e.g. SELECT DEPTNO, LOSAL, HISAL, TOTSAL
FROM DEPT_COMP;
....... gives the result:
DEPTNO LOSAL HISAL TOTSAL
10 800 5000 9550

20 920 3910 19420
30 950 2850 12050
48
11. REPORTING COMMANDS
ORACLE provides facilities to improve the appearance of information displayed by a query.
11.1 Page formatting
The word page refers to a screenful of information on your display, or a page of a spooled
report.
The following commands can be issued at the SQL prompt to reformat the page:
SET LINESIZE nn defines width of page (default is 80, maximum is 132).
SET PAGESIZE nn defines length of page (default is 19).
SET SPACE nn defines number of horizontal spaces between columns.
SET NEWPAGE nn defines number of blank lines at end of page.
SET PAUSE stops screen from scrolling.
11.2 Report titles
49
It is possible to define titles which can appear at the top or the bottom of each page of a report.
TTITLE defines a title that appears at the top of each page.
BTITLE defines a title that appears at the bottom of each page.
Both these title commands can take various clauses:
LEFT places the values at the beginning of the line.
RIGHT places the values at the end of the line.
CENTER places the values at the center of the line (based on LINESIZE).
SKIP n begin a new line or begin n new lines.
| stack the title.
continuation character.
Example:
TTITLE CENTER ‘Company Confidential Report’ SKIP 1 –
LEFT ‘Sales for first Quarter’ RIGHT ‘Computing Department SKIP 2;
Would display the following heading at the top of every page of output:
Company Confidential Report
Sales for first Quarter Computing Department
Example:
BTITLE CENTER ‘Draft submission’
Would display the following at the bottom of each page of output:
Draft submission
50
11.3 Formatting columns
Columns of a table can be given new headings and new formats for the duration of the query.
A more meaningful column heading can be displayed with the use of the COLUMN command:
COLUMN <column name> HEADING <column heading>
Note that '|' can be used in <column heading> to stack the heading.
Example:
COLUMN ENAME HEADING ‘Employee| Name’;
You can change the displayed width of a column by:
COLUMN <column name> FORMAT <format>
The <format> is defined so that 'A' is used for character columns and '9' is used for numeric
columns.
Example:
COLUMN SAL HEADING ‘Salary’ FORMAT £99,999;
Or
COLUMN ENAME FORMAT A10;
The COLUMN command can also be used to suppress the display of a named column:
COLUMN <column name> NOPRINT
51
11.4 Structuring a report
Control breaks can be used to structure a report into groups by the value of a column. All rows
with the same value in that column are organised into a group.
The BREAK command is used to organise the rows into groups.
BREAK ON <column name> *must also use the SELECT's ORDER BY clause.
Other breaks:
BREAK ON ROW whenever a row is retrieved.
BREAK ON PAGE at the end of a page.
BREAK ON REPORT at the end of a report.
Various types of action can be taken at breaks, e.g. an empty line can be displayed (SKIP) or a
new page can be started (PAGE).
After organising rows into groups with the BREAK, you can make the query perform
computations on rows in the group. For example you can make a query compute subtotals on a
specified column for the rows in each group as follows:
COMPUTE SUM OF <column name> ON <break column>
Any GROUP BY function can be used with COMPUTE, for example MAX, AVG and COUNT.
Example:
BREAK ON DEPTNO;
COMPUTE SUM OF SAL ON DEPTNO;
52
11.5 Displaying variable information in titles
To display the page number in the title:
TTITLE RIGHT 'Page' SQL.PNO;
To display column values and special values such as SYSDATE in the title, use has to be made
of a variable which can then be referenced by the TTITLE (or BTITLE) command.
The sequence of commands is:
COLUMN TODAY NEW_VALUE DATEVAR;
This creates a variable DATEVAR to hold the value of the current date.
TTITLE LEFT DATEVAR;
Now that variable can be referenced in the TTITLE command.
COLUMN TODAY NOPRINT;
Usually if you print the value of a variable in the title, you do not want it to appear again in the
body of the report.
Now add SYSDATE to the SELECT command:
SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD/MM/YY') TODAY .......;
The same sequence can be followed for any column in a table.
11.6 Saving reporting commands
53
Normally, when SQLPLUS is entered, the input from the keyboard is taken into the default
SQL buffer. However, when we enter formatting statements, for example, which change the
current definitions of Column Formats, these are not taken into this normal buffer.
Any attempt to SAVE the current work as afiedt.buf, for instance, will cause only the SQL
statement to be saved in the file. The formatting statements will not be saved. In order to
SAVE the formatting statements as well, we must use the ‘save as’ option to create a new file.
Remember to give this file a new name with the usual .sql extension.
When you are ready to run the file with the formatting commands in it simply use the
following:
@filename.sql
Note that the @ symbol means run the contents of the file.
54
APPENDIX 1 The Sample Tables
Note: These are the sample tables which ORACLE comes with there may be differences in
the some of the data values.
EMP
EMPNO ENAME JOB MGR HIREDATE SAL COMM DEPTNO
7369 SMITH CLERK 7902 17DEC80 800.00 20

7499 ALLEN SALESMAN 7698 20FEB81 1,600.00 300.00 30
7521 WARD SALESMAN 7698 22FEB81 1,250.00 500.00 30
7566 JONES MANAGER 7839 02APR81 2,975.00 20
7654 MARTIN SALESMAN 7698 28SEP81 1,250.00 1,400.00 30
7698 BLAKE MANAGER 7839 01MAY81 2,850.00 30
7782 CLARK MANAGER 7839 09JUN81 2,450.00 10
7788 SCOTT ANALYST 7566 09DEC82 3,000.00 20
7839 KING PRESIDENT 17NOV81 5,000.00 10
7844 TURNER SALESMAN 7698 08SEP81 1,500.00 0.00 30
7876 ADAMS CLERK 7788 12JAN83 1,100.00 20
7900 JAMES CLERK 7698 03DEC81 950.00 30
7902 FORD ANALYST 7566 03DEC81 3,000.00 20
7934 MILLER CLERK 7782 23JAN82 1,300.00 10
DEPT SALGRADE
DEPTNO DNAME LOC GRADE LOSAL HISAL
10 ACCOUNTING NEW YORK 1 700 1200

20 RESEARCH DALLAS 2 1201 1400
30 SALES CHICAGO 3 1401 2000
40 OPERATIONS BOSTON 4 2001 3000
5 3001 9999
55

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AN INTRODUCTION TO ORACLE AND SQL

e.g. SQL> HELP INSERT; gives help on the INSERT statement

e.g. SELECT * SELECTS ALL columns from those rows of the

The WHERE clause is responsible for selecting particular rows of the table or tables. The

e.g. SELECT * selects ALL columns from those rows of the EMP

e.g. SELECT * selects all rows from the EMP table where the job

e.g. SELECT * selects ALL rows from the EMP table where the

e.g. SELECT * selects ALL rows from the EMP table where the

3. Condition 3 and Condition 4 are ANDed to produce TRUE if both are true and FALSE

Note that if there are NULL values in an ORDER BY column, then they will appear first,

In the Relational approach to data, rows in different tables are related by having identical

FORMAT VALUE DISPLAYS AS EXPLANATION

ENAME SAL COMM SAL+COMM

FUNCTION EXAMPLE RESULT

FUNCTION EXAMPLE RESULT

INITCAP INITCAP(ENAME) Capitalises the first letter

INSTR INSTR(LOC,’ ‘) Returns the position of

LENGTH LENGTH(ENAME) Length of the employee’s

LOWER LOWER(ENAME) Converts an employee’s

SUBSTR SUBSTR(GRADE,2,1) Two characters of GRADE

UPPER UPPER(ENAME) Translates lowercase

Displays ENAME and JOB and a new column JOB_CLASS. The value of the JOB_CLASS

Capitalisation in a spelled out word follows capitalisation in the corresponding format

ENAME HIREDATE TODAY REVIEWDATE

ENAME HIREDATE TODAY DAYS_TO_REVIEW REVIEWDATE

ENAME HIREDATE REVIEWDATE RAISEDATE

....... changes Miller's job to analyst. If we now look at the view EMP10 we would see the

10 800 5000 9550

7369 SMITH CLERK 7902 17­DEC­80 800.00 20

10 ACCOUNTING NEW YORK 1 700 1200

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7369 SMITH CLERK 7902 17DEC80 800.00 20