RCS 207: Database Systems

Introduction

Definition of database

A database is a collection of related information organized to provide efficient retrieval. The

collected information could be in any number of formats (electronic, printed, graphic, audio,
statistical, combinations). There are physical (paper/print) and electronic databases.

A database could be as simple as an alphabetical arrangement of names in an address book or as

complex as a database that provides information in a combination of formats.

Review Of Traditional Processing And It’s Limitations

 Consider a saving bank enterprise that keeps information about all customers and savings
accounts in permanent system files at the bank.
 The bank will need a number of applications e.g.

i. Program to debit or credit an account

ii. A program to add a new account
iii. A program to find the balance of an account
iv. A program to generate monthly statements
v. Any new program would be added as per the banks requirements

Such a typical filing /processing system has the limitation of more and more files and application
programs being added to the system at any time. Such a scheme has a number of major
disadvantages:

i. Data redundancy and inconsistency - Since the files and application programs are
created by different programmers over a long period of time, the files are likely to have
different formats and the programs may be written in several programming languages.
Moreover, the same piece of information may be duplicated in several files. This
redundancy leads to higher storage and access costs. It may also lead to inconsistency i.e.
the various copies of the same data may no longer agree
ii. Difficulty in accessing - Suppose that one of the bank officers needs to find out the
names of all customers who live within the city's 78-phone code. The officer would ask
the data processing department to generate such a list. Such a request may not have been
anticipated while designing the system originally and the only options available are:-

 Extract the data manually

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  Write the necessary application, therefore do not allow the data to be
accessed conveniently and efficiently
iii. Data isolation - Since data is scattered in various files and files may be in different
formats, it may be difficult to write new applications programs to retrieve the appropriate
data.
iv. Concurrent access anomalies - Interaction of concurrent updates may result in
inconsistent data e.g. if 2 customers withdraw funds say 50/= and 100/= from an account
at about the same time the result of the concurrent execution may leave the account in an
incorrect state.
v. Security problems - Not every user of the database system should be able to access all
the data. Since application programs are added to the system in an ad-hoc manner, it is
difficult to enforce security constraints.
vi. Integrity - The data value stored in the database must satisfy certain types of consistency
constraints e.g. a balance of a bank account may never fall below a prescribed value e.g.
5,000/=. These constraints are enforced in a system by adding appropriate code in the
various application programs. However, when new constraints are added there is need to
change the other programs to enforce.

The database approach

Unlike the file system with many separate and unrelated files, the Database consists of logically
related data store in a single data repository. The problems inherent in file systems make using
the database system very desirable and therefore, the database represents a change in the way the
end user data are stored accessed and arranged

A database management system (DBMS) is a collection of programs that manages

the database structure and controls access to the data stored in the database. In a sense,
a database resembles a very well-organized electronic filing cabinet in which powerful
software (the DBMS) helps manage the cabinet’s contents.

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Advantages of a database

1. Centralized Control - Via the DBA it is possible to enforce centralized management and
control of data. This means that necessary modifications, which do not affect other
application changes, meet the data independence DBMS requirement.
2. Reduction of redundancies - Unnecessary duplication of data is avoided effectively
reducing total amount of data required, consequently the reduction of storage space. It also
eliminates extra processing necessary to trace the required data in a large mass of data. It
also eliminates inconsistencies. Any redundancies that exist in the DBMS are controlled and
the system ensures that his multiple copies are consistent.
3. Shared data - In a DBMS, sharing of data under its control by a number of application
programs and user is possible e.g. backups.
4. Integrity - Centralized control can also ensure that adequate checks are incorporated to the
DBMS provide data integrity. Data integrity means that the data contained in the database is
both accurate and consistent e.g. employee age must be between 28-25 years.
5. Security - Only authorized people must access confidential data. The DBA ensures that
proper access procedures are followed including proper authentication schemes process that
the DBMS and additional checks before permitting access to sensitive data. Different levels
of security can be implemented for various types of data or operations.
6. Conflict Resolution - The DBA is in a position to resolve conflicting requirements of
various users and applications. It is by choosing the best file structure and access method to
get optimum performance for the response. This could be by classifying applications into
critical and less critical applications.
7. Data Independence - It involves both logical and physical independence logical data
independence indicates that the conceptual schemes can be changed without affecting the
existing external schemes. Physical data independence indicates that the physical storage
structures/devices used for storing the data would be changed without necessitating a change
in the conceptual view or any of the external use.

Disadvantages of Database Systems

1. Cost - in terms of:
 The DBMS - software
 Purchasing or developing S/W
 H/W
 Workspace (disks for storage)
 Migration (movement from traditional separate systems to an integrated one)
2. Centralization Problems
You would require adequate backup incase of failure

You would require increased severity of security breeches and disruption of operation of the
organisation because of downtimes and failures.

3. Complexity of Backup and recovery

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4. Complexity

Hierarchical Model

A hierarchical database model is a data model in which the data is organized into a tree-like
structure. The data is stored as records which are connected to one another through links. A
record is a collection of fields, with each field containing only one value. The entity type of a
record defines which fields the record contains.

In order to retrieve data from a hierarchical database the whole tree needs to be traversed starting
from the root node. This model is recognized as the first database model created by IBM in the
1960s.

Figure 1 shows a hierarchical structure that might be used for a human resources database. The
root segment is Employee, which contains basic employee information such as name, address,
and identification number. Immediately below it are three child segments: Compensation
(containing salary and promotion data), Job Assignments (containing data about job positions
and departments), and Benefits (containing data about beneficiaries and benefit options). The
Compensation segment has two children below it: Performance Ratings (containing data about
employees’ job performance evaluations) and Salary History (containing historical data about
employees’ past salaries). Below the Benefits segment are child segments for Pension, Life
Insurance, and Health, containing data about these benefiting plans.

Hierarchical and network DBMS are considered outdated and are no longer used for building
new database applications. They are much less flexible than relational DBMS and do not support
ad hoc, English language–like inquiries for information. All paths for accessing data must be
specified in advance and cannot be changed without a major programming effort.

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Network Model

A network database model is a database model that allows multiple records to be linked to the
same owner file. The model can be seen as an upside down tree where the branches are the
member information linked to the owner, which is the bottom of the tree. The multiple linkages
which this information allows the network database model to be very flexible. In addition, the
relationship that the information has in the network database model is defined as many-to-many
relationship because one owner file can be linked to many member files and vice versa.

Database Life Cycle (DBLC)

1. The Database Initial Study

 Examine the current system operation.
 Try to establish how and why the current system fails.
 Define the problems and constraints
 Define the objectives
 Define scope and boundaries
2. Database Design
 This involves the conceptual design, selection of database, management system
software.
 Creation of the logical design
 Creation of the physical design
3. Implementation
 This involves installation of the DBMS
 Creation of the database
 Loading or conversion of data
4. Testing and evaluation
The activities involve:

 Testing the database

 Tune the database

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  Evaluate the database application programs
 Provide the required information flow
5. Operation
Once the database has passed the evaluation stage it is considered to be operational, the database,
its management, its users and its application programs constitute a complete I.S. The beginning
of the operational phase starts the process of system evaluation.

6. Maintenance and Evaluation

It involves the following:

 Preventive Maintenance
 Corrective maintenance
 Adaptive maintenance
 Assignment and maintenance of access permission to new and old user
 Generation of database access statistics to improve the efficiency and usefulness of
audits and to monitor system persons.
 Periodic security based on the system generated statistics
 Periodic (monthly, quarterly or yearly) system using summaries for internal billing or
budgeting purposes.

Functions and Service of DBMS

A DBMS performs several important functions that guarantee integrity and consistency of data
in the database. Most of these functions are transparent to end-users. There are the following
important functions and services provided by a DBMS:

(i) Data Storage Management: It provides a mechanism for management of permanent storage
of the data. The internal schema defines how the data should be stored by the storage
management mechanism and the storage manager interfaces with the operating system to access
the physical storage.

(ii) Data Manipulation Management: A DBMS furnishes users with the ability to retrieve,
update and delete existing data in the database.

(iii) Data Definition Services: The DBMS accepts the data definitions such as external schema,
the conceptual schema, the internal schema, and all the associated mappings in source form.

(iv) Data Dictionary/System Catalog Management: The DBMS provides a data dictionary or
system catalog function in which descriptions of data items are stored and which is accessible to
users.

(v) Database Communication Interfaces: The end-user's requests for database access are
transmitted to DBMS in the form of communication messages.

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(vi) Authorization / Security Management: The DBMS protects the database against
unauthorized access, either intentional or accidental. It furnishes mechanism to ensure that only
authorized users can access the database.

{vii) Backup and Recovery Management: The DBMS provides mechanisms for backing up
data periodically and recovering from different types of failures. This prevents the loss of data,

(viii) Concurrency Control Service: Since DBMSs support sharing of data among multiple
users, they must provide a mechanism for managing concurrent access to the database. DBMSs
ensure that the database kept in consistent state and that integrity of the data is preserved.

(ix) Transaction Management: A transaction is a series of database operations, carried out by a

single user or application program, which accesses or changes the contents of the database.
Therefore, a DBMS must provide a mechanism to ensure either that all the updates
corresponding to a given transaction are made or that none of them is made.

(x) Database Access and Application Programming Interfaces: All DBMS provide interface
to enable applications to use DBMS services. They provide data access via Structured Query
Language (SQL). The DBMS query language contains two components: (a) a Data Definition
Language (DDL) and (b) a Data Manipulation Language (DML).

ANSI-SPARC Architecture

The ANSI-SPARC Architecture, where ANSI-SPARC stands for American National Standards
Institute, Standards Planning And Requirements Committee, is an abstract design standard for
a Database Management System (DBMS), first proposed in 1975 .
The ANSI-SPARC model of a database identifies three distinct levels at which data items can be
described.
These levels form a three-level architecture comprising:
 an external level,
 a conceptual level, and
 an internal level.

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The objective of the three-level architecture is to separate the users’ view(s) of the database from
the way that it is physically represented. This is desirable for the following reasons:
1. It allows independent customised user views. Each user should be able to access the same
data, but have a different customised view of the data. These should be independent:
changes to one view should not affect others.
2. It hides the physical storage details from users. Users should not have to deal with
physical database storage details. They should be allowed to work with the data itself,
without concern for how it is physically stored.
3. The database administrator should be able to change the database storage structures
without affecting the users’ views. From time to time rationalisations or other changes to
the structure of an organisation’s data will be required.
4. The internal structure of the database should be unaffected by changes to the physical
aspects of the storage. For example, a changeover to a new disk.
5. The database administrator should be able to change the conceptual or global structure of
the database without affecting the users. This should be possible while still maintaining
the desired individual

The External Level

The external level represents the user’s view of the database. It consists of a number of different
views of the database, potentially one for each user. It describes the part of the database that is
relevant to a particular user. For example, large organisations may have finance and stock control
departments. Workers in finance will not usually view stock details as they are more concerned
with the accounting side of things, for example.
Thus, workers in each department will require a different user interface to the information stored
in the database. Views may provide different representations of the same data. For example,
some users might view dates in the form (day/month/year) while others prefer (year/month/day).
Some views might include derived or calculated data. For example, a person’s age might be
calculated from their date of birth since storing their age would require it to be updated each
year.

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The Conceptual Level
The conceptual level describes what data is stored in the database and the relationships among
the data. It is a complete view of the data requirements of the organisation that is independent of
any storage considerations.
The conceptual level represents:
 All entities, their attributes, and their relationships.
 The constraints on the data.
 Security and integrity information.
The conceptual level supports each external view, in that any data available to a user must be
contained in, or derivable from, the conceptual level. The description of the conceptual level
must not contain any storage dependent details.

The Internal Level

The internal level covers the physical representation of the database on the computer (and may
be specified in some programming language). It describes how the data is stored in the database
in terms of particular data structures and file organisations.

The internal level is concerned with:

 Allocating storage space for data and indexes.
 Describing the forms that records will take when stored.
 Record placement. Assembling records into files.
 Data compression and encryption techniques.
The internal level interfaces with the OS to place data on the storage devices, build the indexes,
retrieve the data, etc. Below the internal level is the physical level which is managed by the
OS under the direction of the DBMS. It deals with the mechanics of physically storing data on a
device such as a disk.

Database Schema
The overall description of a database is called the database schema. There are three different
types of schema corresponding to the three levels in the ANSI-SPARC architecture.
The external schemas describe the different external views of the data. There may be many
external schemas for a given database.
The conceptual schema describes all the data items and relationships between them, together
with integrity constraints (later). There is only one conceptual schema per database. At the
lowest level, the internal schema contains definitions of the stored records, the methods of
representation, the data fields, and indexes. There is only one internal schema per database.

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Phases of Database design: Conceptual, Logical and Physical design.

Database design is the process of producing a detailed data model of database to meet an end
users requirement.

Qualities of a Good Database Design

 Reflects real-world structure of the problem

 Can represent all expected data over time
 Avoids redundancy and ensures Consistency
 Provides efficient access to data
 Supports the maintenance of data integrity over time

Database design methodology has 3 main phases:

1. Conceptual database design

2. Logical database design
3. Physical database design

1. Conceptual database design:

It is a process of constructing a data model for each view of the real world problem which is

independent of physical considerations.

This step involves :

 Constructing the ER Model

 Check the model for redundancy
 Validating the model against user transactions to ensure all the scenarios are supported

ER Modelling :

Pictorial Representation of the Real world problem in terms of entities (which have
attributes) and relations between the entities is referred as ER diagram.

2. Logical database design

It is a process of constructing a model of information , which can then be mapped into storage
objects supported by the Database Management System.

This step involves:

 Table Generation From ER Model

 Normalization of Tables

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Table Generation From ER Model

The Cardinality of relationships among the entities can be considered while deriving the

tables from ER Model into the relations.

Normalization of Tables

Normalization is a process of eliminating redundancy and other anomalies in the system.

In most cases in the enterprise world , normalization upto Third Normal form would suffice.

3.Physical database design

The physical design of the database specifies the physical configuration of the database on the
storage media.

This step involves describing the base relations, file organisations, and indexes design used to
achieve efficient access to the data, and any associated integrity constraints and security
measures.

Entity relationship modeling

Basic ER Modeling Concepts
Entity - a class of real world objects having common characteristics and properties about
which we wish to record information.
Relationship - an association among two or more entities
* occurrence - instance of a relationship is the collective instances of the related entities
* degree - number of entities associated in the relationship (binary, ternary, other n-ary)
* connectivity - one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many
* existence dependency (constraint) - optional/mandatory
Attribute - a characteristic of an entity or relationship
* Identifier - uniquely determines an instance of an entity
* Identity dependence - when a portion of an identifier is inherited from another entity
* Multi-valued - same attribute having many values for one entity
* Surrogate - system created and controlled unique key (e.g. Oracle’s “create sequence”)

ER Symbols

Summary of Notation (Chen Notation)

Entity

Weak Entity

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Relationship

Identifying Relationship

Attribute

Key Attribute

Multivalued Attribute

Composite Attribute

Derived Attribute

Total participation of E2 in R

Cardinality ratio 1 : N for E1 : E2 in R

Structural constraint (min,max) on participation of E in R

Relationship types

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Example 1

A company consists of a number of departments each having a number of employees. Each

department has a manager who must be on a monthly payroll, other employees are either on a
monthly or weekly payroll and are members of the sports club if they so wish. Construct an
entity - relationship diagram depicting the scenario.

Example 2

A software company keeps details of the computer systems that it develops. Each system is given
a unique number, a description and a scheduled completion date. The development of each
system is divided into a number of tasks, each of which is allocated a task number (which is only
unique within a system), a description and a budget. The company employs a number of
programmers to work on tasks. Each programmer has an employee number and a name. A
programmer is assigned to a number of tasks and some tasks have more than one programmer
assigned to them. When a programmer is allocated to a task, they are given a number of days to
complete that task.

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Example 3

A marketing company has several branches located throughout the Country. Each branch has
several marketing employees, one of whom is employed as the branch manager. Each branch is
responsible for a group of contracted marketing projects, and any number of the employees,
possibly in different branches, may work on a contracted marketing project. It is also likely that
an employee could be working on many contracted marketing projects at a time, and indeed
could work on the same contracted marketing project at different points during the project’s
lifetime (which could span several months). A contracted marketing project will involve the
development of one or more marketing events, which currently relate to one of four media
alternatives - TV, radio, newspaper or the Internet. It is likely that the number of media
alternatives will increase over time, as new media channels emerge, e.g. interactive TV, wifi , tc.

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Refining the Entity-Relationship Diagram (Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagram)
This section discusses three basic rules for modeling relationships

Entities Must Participate In Relationships

Entities cannot be modeled unrelated to any other entity. Otherwise, when the model was
transformed to the relational model, there would be no way to navigate to that table. The
exception to this rule is a database with a single table.

Resolve Many-To-Many Relationships

Many-to-many relationships cannot be used in the data model because they cannot be
represented by the relational model. Therefore, many-to-many relationships must be resolved
early in the modeling process. The strategy for resolving many-to-many relationship is to replace
the relationship with an association entity (linker table) and then relate the two original entities to
the association entity.
In addition to the implementation problem, this relationship presents other problems.
Suppose we wanted to record information about employee assignments such as who assigned
them, the start date of the assignment, and the finish date for the assignment. Given the present
relationship, these attributes could not be represented in either EMPLOYEE or PROJECT
without repeating information. The first step is to convert the relationship assigned to to a new
entity we will call ASSIGNMENT. Then the original entities, EMPLOYEE and PROJECT, are
related to this new entity preserving the cardinality and optionality of the original relationships.
The solution is shown in the Figure below;

Many to many relationship unresolved

Many to many relationship resolved

Eliminate redundant relationships

A redundant relationship is a relationship between two entities that is equivalent in meaning to
another relationship between those same two entities that may pass through
an intermediate entity. For example, Figure 3.3A shows a redundant relationship between
DEPARTMENT and WORKSTATION. This relationship provides the same information
as the relationships DEPARTMENT has EMPLOYEES and EMPLOYEEs assigned
WORKSTATION. Figure 3.3B shows the solution which is to remove the redundant
relationship DEPARTMENT assigned WORKSTATIONS.

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Primary and Foreign Keys
Primary and foreign keys are the most basic components on which relational theory is based.
Primary keys enforce entity integrity by uniquely identifying entity instances. Foreign keys
enforce referential integrity by completing an association between two entities. The next step in
building the basic data model to;
1. Identify and define the primary key attributes for each entity
2. Validate primary keys and relationships
3. Migrate the primary keys to establish foreign keys
Define Primary Key Attributes
The primary key is an attribute or a set of attributes that uniquely identify a specific instance of
an entity. Every entity in the data model must have a primary key whose values uniquely identify
instances of the entity.
To qualify as a primary key for an entity, an attribute must have the following properties:
• It must have a non-null value for each instance of the entity
• The value must be unique for each instance of an entity
• The values must not change or become null during the life of each entity instance

In this section, we shall discuss the following:

(a) Candidate Key
In some instances, an entity will have more than one attribute that can serve as a primary key.
Any key or minimum set of keys that could be a primary key is called a candidate key. Once
candidate keys are identified, choose one, and only one, primary key for each entity. Choose the
identifier most commonly used by the user as long as it conforms to the properties listed above.
Candidate keys which are not chosen as the primary key are known as alternate keys.
An example of an entity that could have several possible primary keys is Employee. Let's assume
that for each employee in an organization there are three candidate keys:
Employee ID, Social Secur ity Number, and Name.

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Name is the least desirable candidate. While it might work for a small department where it would
be unlikely that two people would have exactly the same name, it would not work for a large
organization that had hundreds or thousands of employees. Moreover, there is the possibility that
an employee's name could change because of marriage.
Employee ID would be a good candidate as long as each employee was assigned a unique
identifier at the time of hire. Social Security would work best since every employee is required to
have one before being hired.

Composite Keys
Sometimes it requires more than one attribute to uniquely identify an entity. A primary key that
made up of more than one attribute is known as a composite key. Figure 3.4 shows an example
of a composite key. Each instance of the entity Work can be uniquely identified only by a
composite key composed of Employee ID and Project ID.

Foreign Keys
A foreign key is an attribute that completes a relationship by identifying the parent entity.
Foreign keys provide a method for maintaining integrity in the data (called referential integrity)
and for navigating between different instances of an entity. Every relationship in the model must
be supported by a foreign key.

Generalization Hierarchies
Another method of characterizing entities is by both similarities and differences. For example,
suppose an organization categorizes the work it does into internal and external projects. Internal
projects are done on behalf of some unit within the organization.
External projects are done for entities outside of the organization. We can recognize that both
types of projects are similar in that each involves work done by employees of the organization
within a given schedule. Yet we also recognize that there are differences between them. External
projects have unique attributes, such as a customer identifier and the fee charged to the customer.
This process of categorizing entities by their similarities and differences is known as
generalization.
Types of Hierarchies
A generalization hierarchy can either be overlapping or disjoint. In an overlapping hierarchy an
entity instance can be part of multiple subtypes. For example, to represent people at a university
you have identified the supertype entity PERSON which has three subtypes, FACULTY,
STAFF, and STUDENT. It is quite possible for an individual to be in more than one subtype, a
staff member who is also registered as a student, for example.
In a disjoint hierarchy, an entity instance can be in only one subtype. For example, the entity
EMPLOYEE, may have two subtypes, CLASSIFIED and WAGES. An employee may be one

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type or the other but not both. Figure 1 shows A) overlapping and B) disjoint generalization
hierarchy.
Disjoint partial (optional)

Disjoint Total (Mandatory)

Overlapping partial (Optional)

Overlapping Total (Mandatory)

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Structured Query Language
SQL stands for Structured Query Language use for storing, manipulating and retrieving
relational database data. SQL queries to retrieve data from database same as adding and
manipulating database data.

SQL is a very powerful and diverse database language use to storing data into databases. SQL
is loosely typed language so you can learn easily. In this SQL tutorial, we use command line
examples to know about executing speed of SQL. It's take very bit of time for executing and
retrieving result. SQL is a greater tool with web languages such as PHP, Python, Java, ASP et
cetera to build dynamic web applications. Before starting SQL, relational databases have
several point that are important to keep in mind.

Type of SQL Statement (DDL, DML, DCL, Commands)

SQL statements are divided into five different categories: Data definition language (DDL),
Data manipulation language (DML), Data Control Language (DCL), Transaction Control
Statement (TCS), Session Control Statements (SCS).

Data Definition Language (DDL) Statements

Data definition statement are use to define the database structure or table.

Statement Description

CREATE Create new database/table.

ALTER Modifies the structure of database/table.

DROP Deletes a database/table.

TRUNCATE Remove all table records including allocated table spaces.

RENAME Rename the database/table.

Data Manipulation Language (DML) Statements

Data manipulation statement are used for managing data within table object.

Statement Description

SELECT Retrieve data from the table.

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 INSERT Insert data into a table.

UPDATE Updates existing data with new data within a table.

DELETE Deletes the records rows from the table.

MERGE (also called UPSERT) statements to INSERT new records or

MERGE
UPDATE existing records depending on condition matches or not.

LOCK TABLE statement to lock one or more tables in a specified mode.

LOCK TABLE Table access denied to a other users for the duration of your table
operation.

CALL Statements are supported in PL/SQL only for executed dynamically. CALL
EXPLAIN PLAN a PL/SQL program or EXPLAIN PATH access the data path.

Data Control Language (DCL) Statements

Data control statement are used to give privileges to access limited data.

Statement Description

GRANT Gives privileges to user for accessing database data.

REVOKE Take back for given privileges.

ANALYZE statement to collect statistics information about index, cluster,

ANALYZE
table.

To track the occurrence of a specific SQL statement or all SQL statements

AUDIT
during the user sessions.

COMMENT Write comment to the data table.

Number Datatypes

Following are numeric data types in SQL

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 Data Type Description

NUMBER data type use to store numeric data.

NUMBER data type have precision and scale.
Storage Range : Precision range(p) : 1 to 38 and Scale range(s) : -
84 to 127
NUMBER Subtypes : This sub type supported ANSI, DB2, and
SQL data type define different type storage range.

Maximum
ANSI, DB2 Datatypes Oracle Data types
Precision

INTEGER 38 digits

INT 38 digits NUMBER(p,0)

NUMBER [ ( precision [,
scale ] ) SMALLINT 38 digits

FLOAT [ (size) ] 126 binary digits FLOAT(126)

DOUBLE PRECISION 126 binary digits FLOAT(126)

REAL 63 binary digits FLOAT(63)

DECIMAL[(precision [,
38 digits
scale ])]
NUMBER(p,s)
NUMERIC[(precision [,
38 digits
scale ])]

FLOAT data type is subtype of NUMBER datatype.

FLOAT [ ( precision ) ] Storage Range : Precision range(p) : 1 to 126
Example : col1 FLOAT(2)

BINARY_FLOAT datatype use binary precision (32-bit).

This data type requires 5 bytes including length byte.
BINARY_FLOAT
Advantages : Arithmetic calculations fast and reduces the storage
requirements.

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 BINARY_DOUBLE datatype use double binary precision (64-bit).
BINARY_DOUBLE
This data type requires 9 bytes including length byte.

Character Datatypes

Character Data type use to store alphabetic/alphanumeric, following are character data
types in Oracle SQL:

Data Type Description Storage(Maximum)

CHAR data type use to store character data within

CHAR [ (size) ] 2000 bytes
predefined length.

NCHAR data type use to store national character data

NCHAR [ (size) ] 2000 bytes
within predefined length.

VARCHAR2 data type use to store variable strings

data within predefined length.
You have to must specify the size of VARCHAR2
datatype.
VARCHAR2 Subtypes : This sub type define same
VARCHAR2(size) 4000 bytes
length value.

Sub Datatype Description

VARCHAR(size) You can also use this data type.

NVARCHAR2 data type use to store Unicode string

data within predefined length.
NVARCHAR2(size) 4000 bytes
You have to must specify the size of NVARCHAR2
datatype.

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SQL CREATE DATABASE Syntax

CREATE DATABASE database_name;

Example :
SQL> CREATE DATABASE user_data;

SQL DROP DATABASE Syntax

DROP DATABASE database_name;

Example :
SQL> DROP DATABASE user_data;

SQL CREATE TABLE Syntax

CREATE TABLE [ IF NOT EXISTS ] table_name(

column_name datatype[(size)] [ NULL | NOT NULL ],
column_name datatype[(size)] [ NULL | NOT NULL ],
[ constraint_name
PRIMARY KEY ( col1, col2, ... ) |
FOREIGN KEY ( col1, col2, ... ) REFERENCES table_2 [ (
col1, col2, ... )
[ ON UPDATE | ON DELETE
[ NO ACTION | SET NULL | SET DEFAULT |
CASCADE ]
]
] |
UNIQUE ( col1, col2, ... ) |
CHECK ( expression )
]
...

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 );

Example :
SQL> CREATE TABLE users_info(
no NUMBER(3) NOT NULL,
name VARCHAR(30),
address VARCHAR(70),
contact_no VARCHAR(12),
PRIMARY KEY (no)
);

SQL INSERT Syntax

Insert one row values :

INSERT INTO table_name [ ( column_name1, column_name2, ... ) ]
VALUES ( value1_row1, value2_row1, ... );

Example :
SQL> INSERT INTO users_info (no,name,address)
VALUES (1, 'Opal Kole', '63 street Ct.');

Insert multiple row values :

INSERT ALL
INTO table_name [ (column_name1, column_name2, ...) ] VALUES
(record1_value1, record1_value2, ...)
INTO table_name [ (column_name1, column_name2, ...) ] VALUES
(record2_value1, record2_value2, ...)
INTO table_name [ (column_name1, column_name2, ...) ] VALUES
(record3_value1, record3_value2, ...)
....
SELECT * FROM dual;

Example :
SQL> INSERT ALL
INTO users_info (no, name, address, contact_no) VALUES (4, 'Paul
Singh', '1343 Prospect St', 000-444-7141)

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 INTO users_info (no, name, address, contact_no) VALUES (5, 'Ken
Myer', '137 Clay Road', 000-444-7084)
INTO users_info (no, name, address, contact_no) VALUES (6, 'Jack
Evans', '1365 Grove Way', 000-444-7957)
INTO users_info (no, name, address, contact_no) VALUES (7, 'Reed
Koch', '1274 West Street', 000-444-4784)
SELECT * FROM dual;

SQL UPDATE Syntax

UPDATE table_name
SET column_name1 = value1, column_name2 = value2 , ...
[ WHERE condition ]
[ LIMIT number ];

Example :
SQL> UPDATE users_info
SET name = "Beccaa Moss" , address ="2500 green city."
WHERE no = 3;

SQL DELETE Syntax

DELETE FROM table_name

[ WHERE condition ]
[ LIMIT number ];

Example :
SQL> DELETE users_info
WHERE no = 3;

SQL SELECT Syntax

SELECT [ DISTINCT | ALL ]

column_name1, column_name2, aggregate_function(column_name) ....
[ FROM table_name ]
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 [ WHERE condition ]
[ GROUP BY groupby_column_name1, .... ]
[ HAVING having_clause ]
[ ORDER BY order_column_name1 [ ASC | DESC ], .... ];

Example :

We have to fetch all table columns using asterisk (*),

SQL> SELECT * FROM users_info WHERE no = 3;

SQL ALTER TABLE Syntax

ALTER TABLE table_name RENAME TO new_table_name;

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD column_name datatype[(size)];
ALTER TABLE table_name MODIFY column_name column_datatype[(size)];
ALTER TABLE table_name RENAME COLUMN old_column_name TO
new_column_name;
ALTER TABLE table_name DROP COLUMN column_name;

Example :
Add new column to a 'users_info' table
SQL> ALTER TABLE users_info ADD postalcode VARCHAR2(8);

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