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SQL Tutorial
Microsoft SQL Server
Stored In The Master Database?
Installing A Production Data Server
SQL Server B (Middle Of The Road)
SQL Commands
SQL BETWEEN
SQL Aggregate Functions
SQL ALIAS
SQL Subquery
SQL INTERSECT
Table Manipulation
SQL CREATE INDEX Statement
SQL PRIMARY KEY
SQL UPDATE Statement
Advanced SQL
SQL Running Totals

Primary keys can be specified either when the table is created (using CREATE TABLE) or by changing the existing table structure (using ALTER TABLE).

Below are examples for specifying a primary key when creating a table:

MySQL:
CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer,
Last_Name varchar(30),
First_Name varchar(30),
PRIMARY KEY (SID));

Oracle:
CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer PRIMARY KEY,
Last_Name varchar(30),
First_Name varchar(30));

SQL Server:
CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer PRIMARY KEY,
Last_Name varchar(30),
First_Name varchar(30));

Below are examples for specifying a primary key by altering a table:

MySQL:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);

Oracle:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);

SQL Server:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);

Note: Before using the ALTER TABLE command to add a primary key, you'll need to make sure that the field is defined as 'NOT NULL' -- in other words, NULL cannot be an accepted value for that field.

 SQL FOREIGN KEY

A foreign key is a field (or fields) that points to the primary key of another table. The purpose of the foreign key is to ensure referential integrity of the data. In other words, only values that are supposed to appear in the database are permitted.

For example, say we have two tables, a CUSTOMER table that includes all customer data, and an ORDERS table that includes all customer orders. The constraint here is that all orders must be associated with a customer that is already in the CUSTOMER table. In this case, we will place a foreign key on the ORDERS table and have it relate to the primary key of the CUSTOMER table. This way, we can ensure that all orders in the ORDERS table are related to a customer in the CUSTOMER table. In other words, the ORDERS table cannot contain information on a customer that is not in the CUSTOMER table.

The structure of these two tables will be as follows:

Table CUSTOMER

Table ORDERS

In the above example, the Customer_SID column in the ORDERS table is a foreign key pointing to the SID column in the CUSTOMER table.

Below we show examples of how to specify the foreign key when creating the ORDERS table:

MySQL:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS
(Order_ID integer,
Order_Date date,
Customer_SID integer,
Amount double,
Primary Key (Order_ID),
Foreign Key (Customer_SID) references CUSTOMER(SID));

Oracle:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS
(Order_ID integer primary key,
Order_Date date,
Customer_SID integer references CUSTOMER(SID),
Amount double);

SQL Server:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS
(Order_ID integer primary key,
Order_Date datetime,
Customer_SID integer references CUSTOMER(SID),
Amount double);

Below are examples for specifying a foreign key by altering a table. This assumes that the ORDERS table has been created, and the foreign key has not yet been put in:

MySQL:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);

Oracle:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD (CONSTRAINT fk_orders1) FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);

SQL Server:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);

 SQL DROP TABLE Statement

Sometimes we may decide that we need to get rid of a table in the database for some reason. In fact, it would be problematic if we cannot do so because this could create a maintenance nightmare for the DBA's. Fortunately, SQL allows us to do it, as we can use the DROP TABLE command. The syntax for DROP TABLE is

DROP TABLE "table_name"

So, if we wanted to drop the table called customer that we created in the CREATE TABLE section, we simply type

DROP TABLE customer.

 SQL TRUNCATE TABLE Statement

Sometimes we wish to get rid of all the data in a table. One way of doing this is with DROP TABLE, which we saw in the last section. But what if we wish to simply get rid of the data but not the table itself? For this, we can use the TRUNCATE TABLE command. The syntax for TRUNCATE TABLE is

TRUNCATE TABLE "table_name"

So, if we wanted to truncate the table called customer that we created in SQL CREATE, we simply type,

TRUNCATE TABLE customer

 SQL INSERT INTO Statement

In the previous sections, we have seen how to retrieve information from tables. But how do these rows of data get into these tables in the first place? This is what this section, covering the INSERT statement, and next section, covering tbe UPDATE statement, are about.

In SQL, there are essentially basically two ways to INSERT data into a table: One is to insert it one row at a time, the other is to insert multiple rows at a time. Let's first look at how we may INSERT data one row at a time:

The syntax for inserting data into a table one row at a time is as follows:

INSERT INTO "table_name" ("column1", "column2", ...)
VALUES ("value1", "value2", ...)

Assuming that we have a table that has the following structure,

Table Store_Information

and now we wish to insert one additional row into the table representing the sales data for Los Angeles on January 10, 1999. On that day, this store had $900 in sales. We will hence use the following SQL script:

INSERT INTO Store_Information (store_name, Sales, Date)
VALUES ('Los Angeles', 900, 'Jan-10-1999')

The second type of INSERT INTO allows us to insert multiple rows into a table. Unlike the previous example, where we insert a single row by specifying its values for all columns, we now use a SELECT statement to specify the data that we want to insert into the table. If you are thinking whether this means that you are using information from another table, you are correct. The syntax is as follows:

INSERT INTO "table1" ("column1", "column2", ...)
SELECT "column3", "column4", ...
FROM "table2"

Note that this is the simplest form. The entire statement can easily contain WHERE, GROUP BY, and HAVING clauses, as well as table joins and aliases.

So for example, if we wish to have a table, Store_Information, that collects the sales information for year 1998, and you already know that the source data resides in the Sales_Information table, we'll type in:

INSERT INTO Store_Information (store_name, Sales, Date)
SELECT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Sales_Information
WHERE Year(Date) = 1998

Here I have used the SQL Server syntax to extract the year information out of a date. Other relational databases will have different syntax. For example, in Oracle, you will use to_char(date,'yyyy')=1998.