Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The SQL SELECT statement returns a result set of rows, from one or more tables. [1] [2] A SELECT statement retrieves zero or more rows from one or more database tables or database views. In most applications, SELECT is the most commonly used data manipulation language (DML) command.
SQL includes operators and functions for calculating values on stored values. SQL allows the use of expressions in the select list to project data, as in the following example, which returns a list of books that cost more than 100.00 with an additional sales_tax column containing a sales tax figure calculated at 6% of the price.
Behind the scenes, it is this statement that is actually executed. A suitably comprehensive front-end can minimize the burden on the user to remember the finer details of SQL, and it is easier and more productive for end-users (and even programmers) to select tables and columns by selecting them rather than typing in their names.
An SQL select statement and its result. In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the data.
SQL statements are used to perform tasks such as insert data to a database, delete or update data in a database, or retrieve data from a database. Though database systems use SQL, they also have their own additional proprietary extensions that are usually only used on their system.
The terms data dictionary and data repository indicate a more general software utility than a catalogue. A catalogue is closely coupled with the DBMS software. It provides the information stored in it to the user and the DBA, but it is mainly accessed by the various software modules of the DBMS itself, such as DDL and DML compilers, the query optimiser, the transaction processor, report ...
In SQL, the data manipulation language comprises the SQL-data change statements, [3] which modify stored data but not the schema or database objects. Manipulation of persistent database objects, e.g., tables or stored procedures, via the SQL schema statements, [3] rather than the data stored within them, is considered to be part of a separate data definition language (DDL).
Indexes are useful for many applications but come with some limitations. Consider the following SQL statement: SELECT first_name FROM people WHERE last_name = 'Smith';. To process this statement without an index the database software must look at the last_name column on every row in the table (this is known as a full table scan).