Aishwarya College of Education

Course :-BCA
Class :- BCA 2nd Year
Subject :- DBMS
Unit :- I-II-III-IV-V

By Anand Harsha 1
Contents
Unit-I ..................................................................................................................................................... 11
DATA: .................................................................................................................................................... 11
INFORMATION: ..................................................................................................................................... 11
ADVANTAGES OF THE DBMS: ................................................................................................................. 11
DISADVANTAGES OF DATABASE ............................................................................................................ 13
Data abstraction .................................................................................................................................... 13
Data model............................................................................................................................................ 15
Hierarchical Model ............................................................................................................................ 15
Features of a Hierarchical Model ................................................................................................... 16
Advantages of Hierarchical Model.................................................................................................. 16
Disadvantages of Hierarchical Model ............................................................................................. 16
Network Model ..................................................................................................................................... 16
Features of a Network Model ........................................................................................................ 17
Advantages of Network Model....................................................................................................... 17
Disadvantages of Network Model .................................................................................................. 18
Entity-Relationship Model ..................................................................................................................... 18
Features of ER Model ........................................................................................................................ 19
Advantages of ER Model .................................................................................................................... 19
Disadvantages of ER Model................................................................................................................ 19
Relational Model ................................................................................................................................... 19
Features of Relational Model ............................................................................................................. 20
Advantages of Relational Model ........................................................................................................ 20
Disadvantages of Relational Model .................................................................................................... 20
Data Independence ............................................................................................................................... 21
Logical Data Independence ................................................................................................................ 21
Physical Data Independence .............................................................................................................. 21
Data definition language ....................................................................................................................... 22
Data manipulation language .................................................................................................................. 22
DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR.................................................................................................................. 22
The responsibilities of a DBA.............................................................................................................. 22
USERS IN DBMS ..................................................................................................................................... 23

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 Users are of 4 types: .......................................................................................................................... 23
1. Application programmers........................................................................................................... 23
2. End Users: .................................................................................................................................. 23
3. Database Administrator (DBA): .................................................................................................. 23
4. System Analyst........................................................................................................................... 24
Overall structure ................................................................................................................................... 24
Internal level: .................................................................................................................................... 25
Conceptual level: ............................................................................................................................... 25
External level: .................................................................................................................................... 25
Difference between file system and dbms(DBMS vs file system) ............................................................ 26
SCHEMA ............................................................................................................................................ 27
INSTANCES ........................................................................................................................................ 27
ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODEL & BASIC CONCEPTS: ............................................................................... 28
ENTITY: .............................................................................................................................................. 28
TYPES OF ENTITY: .............................................................................................................................. 28
ATRIBUTE: ......................................................................................................................................... 28
TYPES OF ATTRIBUTES: .......................................................................................................................... 29
Simple attribute:................................................................................................................................ 29
Single-valued attribute: ..................................................................................................................... 29
Multi-value attributes: ....................................................................................................................... 29
Stored attribute: ................................................................................................................................ 29
Derived attribute: .............................................................................................................................. 30
RELATIONSHIP: .................................................................................................................................. 30
MAPPING CONSTRAINTS / CARDINALITY:............................................................................................... 30
KEYS: ..................................................................................................................................................... 31
Unit-II .................................................................................................................................................... 32
E-R DIAGRAM (ERD):.............................................................................................................................. 32
The elements of an ERD are: .............................................................................................................. 32
Creating an E-R DIAGRAM includes: ................................................................................................... 33
DESIGN OF AN E-R DATABASE SCHEMA: ................................................................................................ 33
REDUCTION OF E-R SCHEMA TO TABLE: ................................................................................................. 34
Reduce the ER diagram to relation table solved exercise................................................................ 34

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 How to reduce an ER diagram to tables? Reduction of ERD to relation schema, Convert Entity
Relationship diagram to set of tables, ERD to relation schema examples, mapping ER diagram to
relational tables................................................................................................................................. 34
Reduce (convert) the following ER diagram to relational schema.............................................. 35
Generalization, Specialization and Aggregation in ER Model .................................................................. 38
Generalization ................................................................................................................................... 38
Specialization .................................................................................................................................... 39
Aggregation ....................................................................................................................................... 40
Unit IIIrd ................................................................................................................................................. 41
Oracle Architecture ............................................................................................................................... 41
Oracle instance: ................................................................................................................................. 41
Oracle database:................................................................................................................................ 42
User and server processes: ................................................................................................................ 42
Connecting to an Oracle Instance – Creating a Session .......................................................................... 43
Physical Structure – Database Files ........................................................................................................ 44
Memory Management and Memory Structures ................................................................................. 45
Oracle Database Memory Management ............................................................................................ 46
System Global Area ............................................................................................................................... 47
Program Global Area (PGA)................................................................................................................ 50
· Private SQL Area: ................................................................................................................... 51
Automatic Shared Memory Management .......................................................................................... 52
Library Cache ................................................................................................................................. 55
· Private SQL Area: ................................................................................................................... 56
Data Dictionary Cache ....................................................................................................................... 56
Buffer Caches .................................................................................................................................... 58
Database Buffer Cache ...................................................................................................................... 58
Redo Log Buffer ................................................................................................................................. 61
Large Pool ...................................................................................................................................... 62
Java Pool........................................................................................................................................ 63
Streams Pool ................................................................................................................................. 63
Processes .......................................................................................................................................... 63
PMON............................................................................................................................................ 66

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 SMON ............................................................................................................................................ 67
DBWn (also called DBWR in earlier Oracle Versions) ...................................................................... 68
LGWR ............................................................................................................................................ 69
CKPT .............................................................................................................................................. 70
Unit – IVth .............................................................................................................................................. 73
SQL .................................................................................................................................................... 73
SQL DML and DDL .............................................................................................................................. 73
Basic Data Types ................................................................................................................................ 74
The CREATE TABLE Command:............................................................................................................... 75
Rules for Creating Tables ................................................................................................................... 76
Inserting Data into Tables ...................................................................................................................... 76
Viewing Data in the Tables .................................................................................................................... 77
Filtering Table Data ............................................................................................................................... 78
Selected Columns and All Rows ......................................................................................................... 78
Selected Rows and All Columns ......................................................................................................... 79
Selected Columns and Selected Rows ................................................................................................ 80
Eliminating Duplicate Rows when using a SELECT statement.............................................................. 81
Sorting Data in a Table........................................................................................................................... 81
DELETE Operations ................................................................................................................................ 83
Specific row(s) from a table ........................................................................................................... 83
All the rows from a table................................................................................................................ 83
Remove of ALL Rows.......................................................................................................................... 84
UPDATING THE CONTENTS OF A TABLE .............................................................................................. 84
ALL the rows from a table. ............................................................................................................. 84
A select set of rows from a table. ................................................................................................... 84
Updating all rows............................................................................................................................... 84
Updating Records Conditionally ......................................................................................................... 85
MODIFYING THE STRUCTURE OF TABLES............................................................................................ 86
Restrictions on the ALTER TABLE........................................................................................................ 86
ALTER TABLE Command can perform..................................................................................................... 86
Adding New Columns......................................................................................................................... 87
Dropping A Column from a Table. ...................................................................................................... 87

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RENAMING TABLES................................................................................................................................ 88
TRUNCATING TABLES............................................................................................................................. 89
DESTROYING TABLES ............................................................................................................................. 89
COMMIT and ROLLBACK ........................................................................................................................ 90
Commit ............................................................................................................................................. 90
Rollback............................................................................................................................................. 90
Difference between DELETE and DROP. ................................................................................................. 90
Difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE. ......................................................................................... 90
Difference between CHAR and VARCHAR............................................................................................... 91
CHAR ............................................................................................................................................. 91
VARCHAR....................................................................................................................................... 91
DATA CONSTRINTS ................................................................................................................................ 91
Primary Key Constraint ...................................................................................................................... 92
Foreign Key Constraint....................................................................................................................... 92
Unique Key Constraint ....................................................................................................................... 92
CHECK Constraint .............................................................................................................................. 93
NOT NULL Constraint ......................................................................................................................... 93
Arithmetic Operators............................................................................................................................. 93
Range Searching (BETWEEN) ................................................................................................................. 98
LIKE ................................................................................................................................................... 98
IN ...................................................................................................................................................... 99
NOT IN............................................................................................................................................. 100
Column Aliases(Renaming Columns) in Oracle: .................................................................................... 100
to add column aliases to your sql queries. ....................................................................................... 100
ORACLE FUNCTIONS ............................................................................................................................ 100
a) SQL Aggregate / Group Functions ................................................................................................ 101
b) SQL String Functions .................................................................................................................... 103
Date Conversion Functions .............................................................................................................. 106
SET OPERATORS and JOINS .................................................................................................................. 107
Union Clause ................................................................................................................................... 109
Intersect Clause ............................................................................................................................... 110
Minus Clause ................................................................................................................................... 111

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JOINS................................................................................................................................................... 112
INNER Join ....................................................................................................................................... 114
OUTER Join ...................................................................................................................................... 114
OUTER JOIN : ................................................................................................................................... 115
CROSS Join....................................................................................................................................... 116
INNER JOIN: ..................................................................................................................................... 117
LEFT JOIN: .................................................................................................................................... 117
RIGHT JOIN: ................................................................................................................................. 117
FULL JOIN: ................................................................................................................................... 117
CARTESIAN JOIN: ......................................................................................................................... 117
Unit - V ................................................................................................................................................ 118
Introduction to PL/SQL ........................................................................................................................ 118
Features of PL/SQL .......................................................................................................................... 118
Advantages of PL/SQL ...................................................................................................................... 118
PL/SQL Block Structure ....................................................................................................................... 119
The 'Hello World' Example ........................................................................................................... 120
The PL/SQL Identifiers ................................................................................................................. 120
The PL/SQL Delimiters................................................................................................................. 120
The PL/SQL Comments ............................................................................................................... 122
PL/SQL Program Units ................................................................................................................. 122
Data Types .......................................................................................................................................... 123
PL/SQL Scalar Data Types and Subtypes ................................................................................. 123
PL/SQL Numeric Data Types and Subtypes .............................................................................. 124
PL/SQL Character Data Types and Subtypes............................................................................ 126
PL/SQL Boolean Data Types....................................................................................................... 127
PL/SQL Datetime and Interval Types.......................................................................................... 127
PL/SQL Large Object (LOB) Data Types.................................................................................... 128
NULLs in PL/SQL.......................................................................................................................... 129
PL/SQL Variables ................................................................................................................................. 129
Variable Declaration in PL/SQL ................................................................................................... 129
Initializing Variables in PL/SQL ................................................................................................... 130
Variable Scope in PL/SQL ........................................................................................................... 131

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 Assigning SQL Query Results to PL/SQL Variables.................................................................. 131
PL/SQL Constants and Literals ............................................................................................................. 133
Declaring a Constant .................................................................................................................... 133
The PL/SQL Literals ..................................................................................................................... 134
PL/SQL Operators ................................................................................................................................ 135
Arithmetic Operators..................................................................................................................... 135
Relational Operators..................................................................................................................... 136
Comparison Operators ................................................................................................................. 137
Logical Operators.......................................................................................................................... 137
PL/SQL Operator Precedence ..................................................................................................... 138
PL/SQL conditions................................................................................................................................ 139
PL/SQL Loops....................................................................................................................................... 141
Labeling a PL/SQL Loop .................................................................................................................... 142
The Loop Control Statements .......................................................................................................... 143
PL/SQL Strings ..................................................................................................................................... 143
Declaring String Variables............................................................................................................ 144
PL/SQL String Functions and Operators .................................................................................... 145
Example 1 .................................................................................................................................... 147
Example 2 .................................................................................................................................... 148
PL/SQL Arrays ...................................................................................................................................... 149
Creating a Varray Type..................................................................................................................... 149
Example 1 .................................................................................................................................... 150
Example 2 .................................................................................................................................... 151
PL/SQL PROCEDURES ........................................................................................................................... 152
Parts of a PL/SQL Subprogram ................................................................................................... 152
Creating a Procedure ................................................................................................................... 153
Example....................................................................................................................................... 153
Executing a Standalone Procedure ............................................................................................. 154
Deleting a Standalone Procedure ............................................................................................... 154
Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms ............................................................................... 154
IN & OUT Mode Example 1 .......................................................................................................... 155
IN & OUT Mode Example 2 .......................................................................................................... 156

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 Methods for Passing Parameters ................................................................................................ 156
Positional Notation ...................................................................................................................... 156
Named Notation .......................................................................................................................... 157
Mixed Notation............................................................................................................................ 157
PL/SQL FUNCTIONS ............................................................................................................................. 157
Creating a Function.......................................................................................................................... 157
Example....................................................................................................................................... 158
Calling a Function ............................................................................................................................ 158
Example....................................................................................................................................... 159
PL/SQL Recursive Functions ............................................................................................................. 160
PL/SQL Cursors .................................................................................................................................... 161
Implicit Cursors ............................................................................................................................. 161
Example....................................................................................................................................... 162
Explicit Cursors ................................................................................................................................ 163
Declaring the Cursor..................................................................................................................... 163
Opening the Cursor ...................................................................................................................... 163
Fetching the Cursor ...................................................................................................................... 164
Closing the Cursor ........................................................................................................................ 164
Example....................................................................................................................................... 164
PL/SQL Exceptions ............................................................................................................................... 165
Syntax for Exception Handling ......................................................................................................... 165
Example....................................................................................................................................... 165
Raising Exceptions ........................................................................................................................... 166
User-defined Exceptions .................................................................................................................. 166
Example....................................................................................................................................... 166
Pre-defined Exceptions .................................................................................................................... 167
PL/SQL Triggers ................................................................................................................................... 169
Benefits of Triggers ...................................................................................................................... 169
Creating Triggers ............................................................................................................................. 170
Example....................................................................................................................................... 171
Triggering a Trigger.......................................................................................................................... 172
PL/SQL Package ................................................................................................................................... 172

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 Package Specification ...................................................................................................................... 172
Package Body .................................................................................................................................. 173
Using the Package Elements ............................................................................................................ 173
Example....................................................................................................................................... 174
The Package Specification ............................................................................................................ 174
Creating the Package Body........................................................................................................... 175
Using The Package ....................................................................................................................... 175
PL/SQL Transactions ............................................................................................................................ 176
Starting and Ending a Transaction .................................................................................................... 176
Committing a Transaction ................................................................................................................ 177
Rolling Back Transactions................................................................................................................. 178
Savepoints ................................................................................................................................... 178
Automatic Transaction Control ........................................................................................................ 179
PL/SQL Date and Time ......................................................................................................................... 179
Field Values for Datetime and Interval Data Types ........................................................................... 179
The Datetime Data Types and Functions .......................................................................................... 180
DATE............................................................................................................................................ 180
TIMESTAMP ................................................................................................................................. 180
TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE ..................................................................................................... 181
TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE .......................................................................................... 181
Examples ..................................................................................................................................... 183
The Interval Data Types and Functions............................................................................................. 183
Interval Functions ........................................................................................................................ 183
References .......................................................................................................................................... 185
Question Paper ................................................................................................................................... 186
Assignments to Students ..................................................................................................................... 188

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 Unit-I

DATA:
Data is a collection of facts, figures and statistics related to an object. For example: Students fill an
admission form when they get admission in college. The form consists of raw facts about the students.
These raw facts are student's name, father name, address etc. The purpose of collecting this data is to
maintain the records of the students during their study period in the college.

INFORMATION:
Processed data is called information. OR The manipulated and processed form of data is called
information. For example: Data collected from census is used to generate different type of information.
The government can use it to determine the literacy rate in the country. Government can use the
information in important decision to improve literacy rate.

ADVANTAGES OF THE DBMS:

1. Improved data sharing: The DBMS helps create an environment in which end users have better access
to more and better-managed data. Such access makes it possible for end users to respond quickly to
changes in their environment.

2. Improved data security: The more users access the data, the greater the risks of data security
breaches. Corporations invest considerable amounts of time, effort, and money to ensure that
corporate data are used properly. A DBMS provides a framework for better enforcement of data privacy
and security policies.

3. Data integration: Wider access to well-managed data promotes an integrated view of the
organization’s operations and a clearer view of the big picture. It becomes much easier to see how
actions in one segment of the company affect other segments.

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 4. Minimized data inconsistency: Data inconsistency exists when different versions of the same data
appear in different places. For example, data inconsistency exists when a company’s sales department
stores a sales representative’s name as “Bill Brown” and the company’s personnel department stores
that same person’s name as “William G. Brown,” or when the company’s regional sales office shows the
price of a product as $45.95 and its national sales office shows the same product’s price as $43.95. The
probability of data inconsistency is greatly reduced in a properly designed database.

5. Improved data access: The DBMS makes it possible to produce quick answers to ad hoc queries. From
a database perspective, a query is a specific request issued to the DBMS for data manipulation—for
example, to read or update the data. Simply put, a query is a question, and an ad hoc query is a spur-of-
the-moment question. The DBMS sends back an answer (called the query result set) to the application.
For example, end users, when dealing with large amounts of sales data, might want quick answers to
questions (ad hoc queries) such as: - What was the dollar volume of sales by product during the past six
months? - What is the sales bonus figure for each of our salespeople during the past three months? -
How many of our customers have credit balances of $3,000 or more?

6. Improved decision making: Better-managed data and improved data access make it possible to
generate better-quality information, on which better decisions are based. The quality of the information
generated depends on the quality of the underlying data. Data quality is a comprehensive approach to
promoting the accuracy, validity, and timeliness of the data. While the DBMS does not guarantee data
quality, it provides a framework to facilitate data quality

7. Increased end-user productivity: The availability of data, combined with the tools that transform data
into usable information, empowers end users to make quick, informed decisions that can make the
difference between success and failure in the global economy.

8. Controlling Data Redundancy: In non-database systems (traditional computer file processing), each
application program has its own files. In this case, the duplicated copies of the same data are created at
many places. In DBMS, all the data of an organization is integrated into a single database. The data is
recorded at only one place in the database and it is not duplicated. For example, the dean's faculty file
and the faculty payroll file contain several items that are identical. When they are converted into
database, the data is integrated into a single database so that multiple copies of the same data are
reduced to-single copy. In DBMS, the data redundancy can be controlled or reduced but is not removed
completely. Sometimes, it is necessary to create duplicate copies of the same data items in order to
relate tables with each other. By controlling the data redundancy, you can save storage space. Similarly,
it is useful for retrieving data from database using queries.

9. Backup and Recovery Procedures: In a computer file-based system, the user creates the backup of
data regularly to protect the valuable data from damaging due to failures to the computer system or
application program. It is a time consuming method, if volume of data is large. Most of the DBMSs
provide the 'backup and recovery' sub-systems that automatically create the backup of data and restore
data if required. For example, if the computer system fails in the middle (or end) of an update operation

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of the program, the recovery sub-system is responsible for making sure that the database is restored to
the state it was in before the program started executing.

DISADVANTAGES OF DATABASE
1. Increased costs: Database systems require sophisticated hardware and software and highly skilled
personnel. The cost of maintaining the hardware, software, and personnel required to operate and
manage a database system can be substantial. Training, licensing, and regulation compliance costs are
often overlooked when database systems are implemented.

2. Management complexity: Database systems interface with many different technologies and have a
significant impact on a company’s resources and culture. The changes introduced by the adoption of a
database system must be properly managed to ensure that they help advance the company’s objectives.
Given the fact that database systems hold crucial company data that are accessed from multiple
sources, security issues must be assessed constantly.

3. Maintaining currency: To maximize the efficiency of the database system, you must keep your system
current. Therefore, you must perform frequent updates and apply the latest patches and security
measures to all components. Because database technology advances rapidly, personnel training costs
tend to be significant. Vendor dependence. Given the heavy investment in technology and personnel
training, companies might be reluctant to change database vendors. As a consequence, vendors are less
likely to offer pricing point advantages to existing customers, and those customers might be limited in
their choice of database system components.

4. Frequent upgrade/replacement cycles: DBMS vendors frequently upgrade their products by adding
new functionality. Such new features often come bundled in new upgrade versions of the software.
Some of these versions require hardware upgrades. Not only do the upgrades themselves cost money,
but it also costs money to train database users and administrators to properly use and manage the new
features.

5. Appointing Technical Staff: The trained technical persons such as database administrator and
application programmers etc are required to handle the DBMS. You have to pay handsome salaries to
these persons. Therefore, the system cost increases.

Data abstraction
Database systems are made-up of complex data structures. To ease the user interaction with database,
the developers hide internal irrelevant details from users. This process of hiding irrelevant details from
user is called data abstraction.

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We have three levels of abstraction:
Physical level: This is the lowest level of data abstraction. It describes how data is actually stored
in database. You can get the complex data structure details at this level.

Logical level: This is the middle level of 3-level data abstraction architecture. It describes what data
is stored in database.

View level: Highest level of data abstraction. This level describes the user interaction with database
system.

Example: Let’s say we are storing customer information in a customer table. At physical level these
records can be described as blocks of storage (bytes, gigabytes, terabytes etc.) in memory. These details
are often hidden from the programmers.

At the logical level these records can be described as fields and attributes along with their data types,
their relationship among each other can be logically implemented. The programmers generally work at
this level because they are aware of such things about database systems.

At view level, user just interact with system with the help of GUI and enter the details at the screen,
they are not aware of how the data is stored and what data is stored; such details are hidden from
them.

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Data model
Data Model gives us an idea that how the final system will look like after its complete implementation. It
defines the data elements and the relationships between the data elements. Data Models are used to
show how data is stored, connected, accessed and updated in the database management system. Here,
we use a set of symbols and text to represent the information so that members of the organisation can
communicate and understand it. Though there are many data models being used nowadays but the
Relational model is the most widely used model. Apart from the Relational model, there are many other
types of data models about which we will study in details in this blog. Some of the Data Models in DBMS
are:

1. Hierarchical Model
2. Network Model
3. Entity-Relationship Model
4. Relational Model

Hierarchical Model
Hierarchical Model was the first DBMS model. This model organizes the data in the hierarchical tree
structure. The hierarchy starts from the root which has root data and then it expands in the form of a
tree adding child node to the parent node. This model easily represents some of the real-world
relationships like food recipes, sitemap of a website etc. Example: We can represent the relationship
between the shoes present on a shopping website in the following way:

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Features of a Hierarchical Model

1. One-to-many relationship: The data here is organized in a tree-like structure where the one-to-
many relationship is between the data types. Also, there can be only one path from parent to
any node. Example: In the above example, if we want to go to the node sneakers we only have
one path to reach there i.e. through men's shoes node.
2. Parent-Child Relationship: Each child node has a parent node but a parent node can have more
than one child node. Multiple parents are not allowed.
3. Deletion Problem: If a parent node is deleted then the child node is automatically deleted.
4. Pointers: Pointers are used to link the parent node with the child node and are used to navigate
between the stored data. Example: In the above example the 'shoes' node points to the two
other nodes 'women shoes' node and 'men's shoes' node.

Advantages of Hierarchical Model

 It is very simple and fast to traverse through a tree-like structure.

 Any change in the parent node is automatically reflected in the child node so, the integrity of
data is maintained.

Disadvantages of Hierarchical Model

 Complex relationships are not supported.

 As it does not support more than one parent of the child node so if we have some complex
relationship where a child node needs to have two parent node then that can't be represented
using this model.
 If a parent node is deleted then the child node is automatically deleted.

Network Model
This model is an extension of the hierarchical model. It was the most popular model before the
relational model. This model is the same as the hierarchical model, the only difference is that a record
can have more than one parent. It replaces the hierarchical tree with a graph. Example: In the example
below we can see that node student has two parents i.e. CSE Department and Library. This was earlier
not possible in the hierarchical model.

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Features of a Network Model

1. Ability to Merge more Relationships: In this model, as there are more relationships so data is
more related. This model has the ability to manage one-to-one relationships as well as many-to-
many relationships.
2. Many paths: As there are more relationships so there can be more than one path to the same
record. This makes data access fast and simple.
3. Circular Linked List: The operations on the network model are done with the help of the circular
linked list. The current position is maintained with the help of a program and this position
navigates through the records according to the relationship.

Advantages of Network Model

 The data can be accessed faster as compared to the hierarchical model. This is because the
data is more related in the network model and there can be more than one path to reach a
particular node. So the data can be accessed in many ways.
 As there is a parent-child relationship so data integrity is present. Any change in parent record
is reflected in the child record.

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Disadvantages of Network Model

 As more and more relationships need to be handled the system might get complex. So, a user
must be having detailed knowledge of the model to work with the model.
 Any change like updation, deletion, insertion is very complex.

Entity-Relationship Model
Entity-Relationship Model or simply ER Model is a high-level data model diagram. In this model, we
represent the real-world problem in the pictorial form to make it easy for the stakeholders to
understand. It is also very easy for the developers to understand the system by just looking at the ER
diagram. We use the ER diagram as a visual tool to represent an ER Model. ER diagram has the
following three components:

 Entities: Entity is a real-world thing. It can be a person, place, or even a

concept. Example: Teachers, Students, Course, Building, Department, etc are some of the
entities of a School Management System.
 Attributes: An entity contains a real-world property called attribute. This is the characteristics
of that attribute. Example: The entity teacher has the property like teacher id, salary, age, etc.
 Relationship: Relationship tells how two attributes are related. Example: Teacher works for a
department.
Example:

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In the above diagram, the entities are Teacher and Department. The attributes of Teacher entity are
Teacher_Name, Teacher_id, Age, Salary, Mobile_Number. The attributes of entity Department entity
are Dept_id, Dept_name. The two entities are connected using the relationship. Here, each teacher
works for a department.

Features of ER Model

 Graphical Representation for Better Understanding: It is very easy and simple to understand
so it can be used by the developers to communicate with the stakeholders.
 ER Diagram: ER diagram is used as a visual tool for representing the model.
 Database Design: This model helps the database designers to build the database and is widely
used in database design.

Advantages of ER Model

 Simple: Conceptually ER Model is very easy to build. If we know the relationship between the
attributes and the entities we can easily build the ER Diagram for the model.
 Effective Communication Tool: This model is used widely by the database designers for
communicating their ideas.
 Easy Conversion to any Model: This model maps well to the relational model and can be easily
converted relational model by converting the ER model to the table. This model can also be
converted to any other model like network model, hierarchical model etc.

Disadvantages of ER Model

 No industry standard for notation: There is no industry standard for developing an ER model.
So one developer might use notations which are not understood by other developers.
 Hidden information: Some information might be lost or hidden in the ER model. As it is a high-
level view so there are chances that some details of information might be hidden.

Relational Model
Relational Model is the most widely used model. In this model, the data is maintained in the form of a
two-dimensional table. All the information is stored in the form of row and columns. The basic
structure of a relational model is tables. So, the tables are also called relations in the relational
model. Example: In this example, we have an Employee table.

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Features of Relational Model

 Tuples: Each row in the table is called tuple. A row contains all the information about any
instance of the object. In the above example, each row has all the information about any
specific individual like the first row has information about John.
 Attribute or field: Attributes are the property which defines the table or relation. The values
of the attribute should be from the same domain. In the above example, we have different
attributes of the employee like Salary, Mobile_no, etc.

Advantages of Relational Model

 Simple: This model is more simple as compared to the network and hierarchical model.
 Scalable: This model can be easily scaled as we can add as many rows and columns we want.
 Structural Independence: We can make changes in database structure without changing the
way to access the data. When we can make changes to the database structure without
affecting the capability to DBMS to access the data we can say that structural independence
has been achieved.

Disadvantages of Relational Model

 Hardware Overheads: For hiding the complexities and making things easier for the user this
model requires more powerful hardware computers and data storage devices.
 Bad Design: As the relational model is very easy to design and use. So the users don't need to
know how the data is stored in order to access it. This ease of design can lead to the
development of a poor database which would slow down if the database grows.
But all these disadvantages are minor as compared to the advantages of the relational model. These
problems can be avoided with the help of proper implementation and organization.

By Anand Harsha 20
Data Independence
A database system normally contains a lot of data in addition to users’ data. For example, it stores data
about data, known as metadata, to locate and retrieve data easily. It is rather difficult to modify or
update a set of metadata once it is stored in the database. But as a DBMS expands, it needs to change
over time to satisfy the requirements of the users. If the entire data is dependent, it would become a
tedious and highly complex job.

Metadata itself follows a layered architecture, so that when we change data at one layer, it does not
affect the data at another level. This data is independent but mapped to each other.

Logical Data Independence

Logical data is data about database, that is, it stores information about how data is managed inside. For
example, a table (relation) stored in the database and all its constraints, applied on that relation.
Logical data independence is a kind of mechanism, which liberalizes itself from actual data stored on
the disk. If we do some changes on table format, it should not change the data residing on the disk.

Physical Data Independence

All the schemas are logical, and the actual data is stored in bit format on the disk. Physical data
independence is the power to change the physical data without impacting the schema or logical data.
For example, in case we want to change or upgrade the storage system itself − suppose we want to
replace hard-disks with SSD − it should not have any impact on the logical data or schemas

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Data definition language
DDL(Data Definition Language) : DDL or Data Definition Language actually consists of the SQL
commands that can be used to define the database schema. It simply deals with descriptions of the
database schema and is used to create and modify the structure of database objects in the database.

Examples of DDL commands:

 CREATE – is used to create the database or its objects (like table, index, function, views, store
procedure and triggers).
 DROP – is used to delete objects from the database.
 ALTER-is used to alter the structure of the database.
 TRUNCATE–is used to remove all records from a table, including all spaces allocated for the
records are removed.
 COMMENT –is used to add comments to the data dictionary.
 RENAME –is used to rename an object existing in the database

Data manipulation language

DML(Data Manipulation Language) : The SQL commands that deals with the manipulation of data
present in the database belong to DML or Data Manipulation Language and this includes most of the
SQL statements.

Examples of DML:
 INSERT – is used to insert data into a table.
 UPDATE – is used to update existing data within a table.
 DELETE – is used to delete records from a database table.

DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR
the people responsible for managing databases are called database administrators. Each database
administrator, dubbed DBA for the sake of brevity may be engaged in performing various database
manipulation tasks such as archiving, testing, running, security control etc. all related to the
environmental side of the databases.

The responsibilities of a DBA

1. Designing the logical and physical schemas, as well as widely-used portions of the external schema.

2. Security and authorization.

3. Data availability and recovery from failures.

4. Database tuning: The DBA is responsible for evolving the database, in particular the conceptual and
physical schemas to ensure adequate performance as user requirements change.

By Anand Harsha 22
USERS IN DBMS
Users are of 4 types:

1. Application programmers or Ordinary users

2. End users

3. Database Administrator (DBA)

4. System Analyst

1. Application programmers

or Ordinary users: These users write application programs to interact with the database. Application
programs can be written in some programming language such a COBOL, PL/I, C++, JAVA or some higher
level fourth generation language. Such programs access the database by issuing the appropriate
request, typically a SQL statement to DBMS.

2. End Users:

End users are the users, who use the applications developed. End users need not know about the
working, database design, the access mechanism etc. They just use the system to get their task done.
End users are of two types:

a) Direct users

b) Indirect users

a) Direct users: Direct users are the users who se the computer, database system directly, by following
instructions provided in the user interface. They interact using the application programs already
developed, for getting the desired result. E.g. People at railway reservation counters, who directly
interact with database.

b) Indirect users: Indirect users are those users, who desire benefit form the work of DBMS indirectly.
They use the outputs generated by the programs, for decision making or any other purpose. They are
just concerned with the output and are not bothered about the programming part.

3. Database Administrator (DBA):

Database Administrator (DBA) is the person which makes the strategic and policy decisions regarding
the data of the enterprise, and who provide the necessary technical support for implementing these
decisions. Therefore, DBA is responsible for overall control of the system at a technical level. In database
environment, the primary resource is the database itself and the secondary resource is the DBMS and
related software administering these resources is the responsibility of the Database Administrator
(DBA).

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4. System Analyst:

System Analyst determines the requirement of end users, especially naive and parametric end users
and develops specifications for transactions that meet these requirements. System Analyst plays a major
role in database design, its properties; the structure prepares the system requirement statement, which
involves the feasibility aspect, economic aspect, technical aspect etc. of the system.

Overall structure

3 LEVEL ARCHITECTURE / THREE-SCHEMA ARCHITECTURE: In this architecture, the overall database

description can be defined at three levels namely internal, conceptual, and external levels. This is shown
below:

Can be easily understandable by

By Anand Harsha 24
Internal level:
It is the lowest level of data abstraction that deals with the physical representation of the database on
the computer and thus, is also known as physical level. It describes how the data is physically stored and
organized on the storage medium. At this level, various aspects are considered to achieve optimal
runtime performance and storage space utilization. These aspects include storage space allocation
techniques for data and indexes, access paths such as indexes, data compression and encryption
techniques, and record placement.

Conceptual level:
This level of abstraction deals with the logical structure of the entire database and it is also known as
logical level. It describes what data is stored in the database, the relationships among the data and
complete view of the user’s requirements without any concern for the physical implementation. It hides
the complexity of physical storage structures. The conceptual view is the overall view of the database
and it includes all the information that is going to be represented in the database.

External level:
It is the highest level of abstraction that deals with the user’s view of the database and it is also known
as view level. Most of the users and application programs do not require the entire data stored in the
database. The external level describes a part of the database for a particular group of users. It permits

By Anand Harsha 25
 users to access data in a way that is customized according to their needs, so that the same data can be
seen by different users in different ways at the same time. It provides a powerful and flexible security
mechanism by hiding the parts of the database from certain users, as the user is not aware of existence
of any attributes that are missing from the view.

Difference between file system and dbms(DBMS vs file system)

File system DBMS

File system is a collection of data. Any DBMS is a collection of data and user is
management with the file system, user has to not required to write the procedures for
write the procedures. managing the database.

File system gives the details of the data DBMS provides an abstract view of data
representation and Storage of data. that hides the details.

DBMS is efficient to use since there are

In File system storing and retrieving of data
wide varieties of sophisticated techniques
cannot be done efficiently.
to store and retrieve the data.

By Anand Harsha 26
Concurrent access to the data in the file
system has many problems like : Reading the DBMS takes care of Concurrent access
file while other form of locking. deleting some using some form of locking.
information, updating some information

File system doesn’t provide crash recovery

mechanism. DBMS has crash recovery mechanism,
Eg. While we are entering some data into the DBMS protects user from the effects of
file if System crashes then content of the file is system failures.
lost

Protecting a file under file system is very

DBMS has a good protection mechanism.
difficult.

SCHEMA
A schema is a collection of named objects. Schemas are generally stored in a data dictionary. Although a
schema is defined in text database language, the term is often used to refer to a graphical depiction of
the database structure. In relational database technology, schemas provide a logical classification of
objects in the database. Some of the objects that a schema may contain include tables, views, aliases,
indexes, triggers, and structured types.

INSTANCES
The data in the database at a particular moment of time is called an instance or a database state. In a
given instance, each schema construct has its own current set of instances. Many instances or database
states can be constructed to correspond to a particular database schema. Every time we update (i.e.,
insert, delete or modify) the value of a data item in a record, one state of the database changes into
another state. The following figure shows an instance of the ITEM relation in a database schema.

By Anand Harsha 27
ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODEL & BASIC CONCEPTS:
It is a semantic data model that is used for the graphical representation of the conceptual database
design. Entity relationship model defines the conceptual view of database. It works around real world
entity and association among them. At view level, ER model is considered well for designing databases.
The Entity Relationship (ER) model consists of different types of entities. The existence of an entity may
depends on the existence of one or more other entities, such an entity is said to be existence
dependent. Entities whose existence not depending on any other entities is termed as not existence
dependent. Entities based on their characteristics are classified as follows.

ENTITY:
A real-world thing either animate or inanimate that can be easily identifiable and distinguishable, called
entity. Entities are represented by means of rectangles. Rectangles are named with the entity set they
represent.

TYPES OF ENTITY:

Strong entity: An entity set that has a primary key is called as Strong entity set. Strong entity
represented by rectangle which is shown below.

Weak entity: An entity set that does not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key is termed as a
weak entity set. Weak entity represented by double rectangle which is shown below.

ATRIBUTE:

By Anand Harsha 28
 Attributes are properties of entities. Attributes are represented by means of ellipse. Every ellipse
represents one attribute and is directly connected to its entity (rectangle). For example the employee is
the entity and employee’s name, age, address, salary and job etc are the attribute. Attribute is
represented by ellipse.

TYPES OF ATTRIBUTES:

Simple attribute:

Simple attribute consists of a single atomic value. A simple attribute cannot be subdivided. For example
the attributes age, sex etc is simple attributes. Composite attribute: A composite attribute is an attribute
that can be further subdivided. For example the attribute ADDRESS can be subdivided into street, city,
state, and zip code.

Single-valued attribute:
A single valued attribute can have only a single value. For example a person can have only one 'date of
birth', 'age' etc. That is a single valued attributes can have only single value. But it can be simple or
composite attribute. That is 'date of birth' is a composite attribute; 'age' is a simple attribute. But both
are single valued attributes.

Multi-value attributes:

Multivalve attributes can have multiple values. For instance a person may have multiple phone
numbers, multiple degrees etc. Multivalve attributes are shown by a double line connecting to the entity
in the ER diagram.

Stored attribute:
By Anand Harsha 29
The value for the derived attribute is derived from the stored attribute. For example 'Date of birth' of a
person is a stored attribute. The value for the attribute 'AGE' can be derived by subtracting the 'Date of
Birth'(DOB) from the current date. Stored attribute supplies a value to the related attribute.

Derived attribute:
An attribute that’s value is derived from a stored attribute. Example: age, and it’s value is derived from
the stored attribute Date of Birth. It is represented by dotted ellipse.

RELATIONSHIP:
The association among entities is called relationship. For example, employee entity has relation
works_at with department. Another example is for student who enrolls in some course. Works_at and
Enrolls are called relationship. Relationship is represented by diamond box.

Example: Student (entity type) is related to Department (entity type) by MajorsIn (relationship type).

MAPPING CONSTRAINTS / CARDINALITY:

While creating relationship between two entities. We may often need to face the cardinality problem.
This simply means that how many entities of the first set are related to how many entities of the second
set. Cardinality can be of the following four types.

By Anand Harsha 30
One-to-One:

Only one entity of the first set is related to only one entity of the second set. Example A teacher teaches
a student. Only one teacher is teaching only one student.

One-to-Many:

Only one entity of the first set is related to multiple entities of the second set. Example A teacher
teaches students. Only one teacher is teaching many students.

Many-to-One:

Multiple entities of the first set are related to multiple entities of the second set. Example Teachers
teach a student. Many teachers are teaching only one student.

Many-to-Many:

Multiple entities of the first set is related to multiple entities of the second set. Example Teachers teach
students. In any school or college many teachers are teaching many students. This can be considered as
a two way one-to-many relationship.

KEYS:
A key is an attribute of a table which helps to identify a row. There can be many different types of keys:
Super Key or Candidate Key:

It is such an attribute of a table that can uniquely identify a row in a table. Generally they contain
unique values and can never contain NULL values. There can be more than one super key or candidate

By Anand Harsha 31
key in a table Example within a STUDENT table Roll and Mobile No. can both serve to uniquely identify a
student.

Primary Key:

It is one of the candidate keys that are chosen to be the identifying key for the entire table. Example
although there are two candidate keys in the STUDENT table, the college would obviously use Roll as the
primary key of the table.

Alternate Key:

This is t1he candidate key which is not chosen as the primary key of the table. They are named so
because although not the primary key, they can still identify a row.

Composite Key:

Sometimes one key is not enough to uniquely identify a row. Example in a single class Roll is enough to
find a student but in the entire school merely searching by the Roll is not enough because there could be
10 classes in the school and each one of them may contain a certain roll no 5. To uniquely identify the
student we have to say something like “class VII, roll no 5”. So a combination of two or more attributes
is combined to create a unique combination of values such as Class + Roll.

Foreign Key:

Sometimes we may have to work with an attribute that does not have a primary key of its own. To
identify its rows, we have to use the primary attribute of a related table. Such a copy of another related
table’s primary key is called foreign key

Unit-II

E-R DIAGRAM (ERD):

An entity-relationship diagram (ERD) is a data modeling technique that graphically illustrates an
information system’s entities and the relationships between those entities. An ERD is a conceptual and
representational model of data used to represent the entity framework infrastructure.

The elements of an ERD are:

Entities:

A real-world thing either animate or inanimate that can be easily identifiable and distinguishable.

Attributes:

Entities are represented by means of their properties, called attributes.

By Anand Harsha 32
 Relationships:

The association among entities is called relationship.

Creating an E-R DIAGRAM includes:

1. Identifying and defining the entities

2. Determining all interactions between the entities

3. Analyzing the nature of interactions/determining the cardinality of the relationships

4. Creating the ERD

DESIGN OF AN E-R DATABASE SCHEMA:

Database design is the process of producing a detailed data model of a database. This logical data
model contains all the needed logical and physical design choices and physical storage parameters
needed to generate a design in a data definition language, which can then be used to create a database.
A fully attributed data model contains detailed attributes for each entity. The term database design can
be used to describe many different parts of the design of an overall database system. Principally, and
most correctly, it can be thought of as the logical design of the base data structures used to store the
data. In the relational model these are the tables and view. In an object database the entities and
relationships map directly to object classes and named relationships. However, the term database
design could also be used to apply to the overall process of designing, not just the base data structures,
but also the forms and queries used as part of the overall database application within the database
management system

1. Determine the purpose of the database - This helps prepare for the remaining steps.

2. Find and organize the information required - Gather all of the types of information to record in the
database, such as product name and order number.

3. Divide the information into tables - Divide information items into major entities or subjects, such as
Products or Orders. Each subject then becomes a table.

4. Turn information items into columns - Decide what information needs to be stored in each table.
Each item becomes a field, and is displayed as a column in the table. For example, an Employees table
might include fields such as Last Name and Hire Date.

5. Specify primary keys - Choose each table’s primary key. The primary key is a column, or a set of
columns, that is used to uniquely identify each row. An example might be Product ID or Order ID.

6. Set up the table relationships - Look at each table and decide how the data in one table is related to
the data in other tables. Add fields to tables or create new tables to clarify the relationships, as
necessary.

By Anand Harsha 33
7. Refine the design - Analyze the design for errors. Create tables and add a few records of sample data.
Check if results come from the tables as expected. Make adjustments to the design, as needed. 8. Apply
the normalization rules - Apply the data normalization rules to see if tables are structured correctly.
Make adjustments to the tables

REDUCTION OF E-R SCHEMA TO TABLE:

A database which conforms to an E R diagram can be represented by collection of table’s .For each
entity set and for each relationship set in the database, we will create unique tables, which is assigned
the name of the corresponding entity set or relationship sets. Each table has a no. of columns which
have unique names. Each row in the table corresponds to an entity or a relationship. A database that
conforms to an E-R database schema can be represented by a collection of tables. For each entity set
and for each relationship set, there is a unique table. A table is a chart with rows and columns. The set
of all possible rows is the Cartesian product of all columns. A row is also known as a tuple or a record. A
table has an unlimited number of rows. Each column is also known as a field. There are few points to
reduction of ER schema.

1. Strong Entity Sets: It is common practice for the table to have the same name as the entity set. There
is one column for each attribute.

2. Weak Entity Sets: There is one column for each attribute, plus the attribute(s) the form the primary
key of the strong entity set that the weak entity set depends upon.

3. Relationship Sets: We represent a relationship with a table that includes the attributes of each of the
primary keys plus any descriptive attributes (if any). There is a problem that if one of the entities in the
relationship is a weak entity set. There would be no unique information in the relationship table and
therefore may be omitted. Another problem can occur if there is an existence dependency. In that case
you can combine the two tables.

4. Multivalve Attributes: When an attribute is multivalve, remove the attribute from the table and
create a new table with the primary key and the attribute, but each value will be a separate row.

5. Generalization: Create a table for the higher-level entity set. For each lower-level entity set, create a
table with the attributes for that specialization and include the primary key from the higher-level entity
set.

Reduce the ER diagram to relation table solved exercise

How to reduce an ER diagram to tables? Reduction of ERD to relation schema, Convert Entity
Relationship diagram to set of tables, ERD to relation schema examples, mapping ER diagram to
relational tables

By Anand Harsha 34
Reduce (convert) the following ER diagram to relational schema

ER components Given component Result

Strong Entity Set (a) STUDENT (a) STUDENT (Student_ID,
Rule: Strong entity (b) SUBJECT Student_Name, DOB, Address)
set can be directly (b) SUBJECT (Subject_ID,
converted into table. (c) CLASS
Subject_Name, Teacher)
(C) CLASS (Class_ID,
Class_Name)
Derived attribute Age in STUDENT table No changes
Rule: No need to
create a column in
the table for derived
attribute.
Composite attribute Address in STUDENT STUDENT (Student_ID,
Rule: Replace the table Student_Name, DOB, Door,
composite attribute Street, City, Pin)
with its component
attributes.
1-1, 1-n, and n-1 Attends (1-1 from CLASS (Class_ID, Class_Name,
Relationships STUDENT to CLASS) Student_ID)
Rule: Include the SUBJECT (Subject_ID,
By Anand Harsha 35
primary key of one Studies (1-n from Subject_Name, Teacher,
side entity set as the STUDENT to SUBJECT) Student_ID)
foreign key of other
side entity set.

Descriptive attribute DateOfJoin, Hours# of CLASS (Class_ID,

Rule: An attribute Attends relationship. Class_Name, Student_ID,
that is part of a DateOfJoin, Hours#)
relationship is
descriptive. Include
the descriptive
attributes to 1 side as
shown above.
Weak entity set (d) SECTION SECTION (Section_ID,
Rule: Weak entity set Section_Name, Class_ID)
is totally
participated
(existence dependent)
on the strong entity
set. Include the
primary key of strong
entity set into the
weak entity set as
foreign key.
Weak relationship Has No changes
Rule: No need to
create as a table. If
created, then the
table is redundant.

Final set of relation schemas: (Primary keys are underlined)

STUDENT (Student_ID, Student_Name, DOB, Door, Street, City, Pin)

CLASS (Class_ID, Class_Name, Student_ID, DateOfJoin, Hours#)
Student_ID is the foreign key refers STUDENT table

SUBJECT (Subject_ID, Subject_Name, Teacher, Student_ID)

By Anand Harsha 36
Student_ID is the foreign key refers STUDENT table

SECTION (Section_ID, Class_ID, Section_Name)

Class_ID is the foreign key refers CLASS table

By Anand Harsha 37
Generalization, Specialization and Aggregation in ER Model
Prerequisite
– Introduction of ER Model
Generalization, Specialization and Aggregation in ER model are used for data abstraction in which
abstraction mechanism is used to hide details of a set of objects.

Generalization
Generalization is the process of extracting common properties from a set of entities and create a
generalized entity from it. It is a bottom-up approach in which two or more entities can be generalized
to a higher level entity if they have some attributes in common. For Example, STUDENT and FACULTY
can be generalized to a higher level entity called PERSON as shown in Figure 1. In this case, common
attributes like P_NAME, P_ADD become part of higher entity (PERSON) and specialized attributes like
S_FEE become part of specialized entity (STUDENT).

By Anand Harsha 38
Specialization
In specialization, an entity is divided into sub-entities based on their characteristics. It is a top-down
approach where higher level entity is specialized into two or more lower level entities. For Example,
EMPLOYEE entity in an Employee management system can be specialized into DEVELOPER, TESTER etc.
as shown in Figure 2. In this case, common attributes like E_NAME, E_SAL etc. become part of higher
entity (EMPLOYEE) and specialized attributes like TES_TYPE become part of specialized entity (TESTER).

By Anand Harsha 39
Aggregation
An ER diagram is not capable of representing relationship between an entity and a relationship which
may be required in some scenarios. In those cases, a relationship with its corresponding entities is
aggregated into a higher level entity. For Example, Employee working for a project may require some
machinery. So, REQUIRE relationship is needed between relationship WORKS_FOR and entity
MACHINERY. Using aggregation, WORKS_FOR relationship with its entities EMPLOYEE and PROJECT is
aggregated into single entity and relationship REQUIRE is created between aggregated entity and
MACHINERY.

By Anand Harsha 40
 Unit IIIrd

Oracle Architecture

Oracle server: An Oracle server includes an Oracle Instance and an Oracle database.

· An Oracle database includes several different types of files: datafiles, control files, redo log files and
archive redo log files. The Oracle server also accesses parameter files and password files.

· This set of files has several purposes.

o One is to enable system users to process SQL statements.

o Another is to improve system performance.

o Still another is to ensure the database can be recovered if there is a software/hardware failure.

· The database server must manage large amounts of data in a multi-user environment.

· The server must manage concurrent access to the same data.

· The server must deliver high performance. This generally means fast response times.

Oracle instance:

An Oracle Instance consists of two different sets of components:

By Anand Harsha 41
· The first component set is the set of background processes (PMON, SMON, RECO, DBW0, LGWR, CKPT,
D000 and others).

o These will be covered later in detail – each background process is a computer program.

o These processes perform input/output and monitor other Oracle processes to provide good performance
and database reliability.

· The second component set includes the memory structures that comprise the Oracle instance.

o When an instance starts up, a memory structure called the System Global Area (SGA) is allocated.

o At this point the background processes also start.

· An Oracle Instance provides access to one and only one Oracle database.

Oracle database:
An Oracle database consists of files.
· Sometimes these are referred to as operating system files, but they are actually database files that
store the database information that a firm or organization needs in order to operate.
· The redo log files are used to recover the database in the event of application program failures,
instance failures and other minor failures.
· The archived redo log files are used to recover the database if a disk fails.
· Other files not shown in the figure include:
o The required parameter file that is used to specify parameters for configuring an Oracle instance when it
starts up.
o The optional password file authenticates special users of the database – these are termed privileged
users and include database administrators.
o Alert and Trace Log Files – these files store information about errors and actions taken that affect the
configuration of the database.

User and server processes:

The processes shown in the figure are called user and server processes. These processes are used to
manage the execution of SQL statements.
· A Shared Server Process can share memory and variable processing for multiple user processes.
· A Dedicated Server Process manages memory and variables for a single user process.

This figure from the Oracle Database Administration Guide provides another way of viewing the SGA.

By Anand Harsha 42
Connecting to an Oracle Instance – Creating a Session

By Anand Harsha 43
 System users can connect to an Oracle database through SQLPlus or through an application program like
the Internet Developer Suite (the program becomes the system user). This connection enables users to
execute SQL statements.

The act of connecting creates a communication pathway between a user process and an Oracle
Server. As is shown in the figure above, the User Process communicates with the Oracle Server through
a Server Process. The User Process executes on the client computer. The Server Process executes on
the server computer, and actually executes SQL statements submitted by the system user.

The figure shows a one-to-one correspondence between the User and Server Processes. This is called
a Dedicated Server connection. An alternative configuration is to use a Shared Server where more than
one User Process shares a Server Process.

Sessions: When a user connects to an Oracle server, this is termed a session. The User Global Area is
session memory and these memory structures are described later in this document. The session starts
when the Oracle server validates the user for connection. The session ends when the user logs out
(disconnects) or if the connection terminates abnormally (network failure or client computer failure).

A user can typically have more than one concurrent session, e.g., the user may connect using SQLPlus
and also connect using Internet Developer Suite tools at the same time. The limit of concurrent session
connections is controlled by the DBA.

If a system users attempts to connect and the Oracle Server is not running, the system user receives
the Oracle Not Available error message.

Physical Structure – Database Files

As was noted above, an Oracle database consists of physical files. The database itself has:
· Datafiles – these contain the organization's actual data.
· Redo log files – these contain a chronological record of changes made to the database, and enable
recovery when failures occur.

By Anand Harsha 44
· Control files – these are used to synchronize all database activities and are covered in more detail in a
later module.

Other key files as noted above include:

· Parameter file – there are two types of parameter files.

o The init.ora file (also called the PFILE) is a static parameter file. It contains parameters that specify how
the database instance is to start up. For example, some parameters will specify how to allocate memory
to the various parts of the system global area.

o The spfile.ora is a dynamic parameter file. It also stores parameters to specify how to startup a
database; however, its parameters can be modified while the database is running.

· Password file – specifies which *special* users are authenticated to startup/shut down an Oracle
Instance.

· Archived redo log files – these are copies of the redo log files and are necessary for recovery in an
online, transaction-processing environment in the event of a disk failure.

Memory Management and Memory Structures

By Anand Harsha 45
 Oracle Database Memory Management

Memory management - focus is to maintain optimal sizes for memory structures.

· Memory is managed based on memory-related initialization parameters.

· These values are stored in the init.ora file for each database.

Three basic options for memory management are as follows:

· Automatic memory management:

o DBA specifies the target size for instance memory.

o The database instance automatically tunes to the target memory size.

o Database redistributes memory as needed between the SGA and the instance PGA.

· Automatic shared memory management:

o This management mode is partially automated.

o DBA specifies the target size for the SGA.

o DBA can optionally set an aggregate target size for the PGA or managing PGA work areas individually.

· Manual memory management:

o Instead of setting the total memory size, the DBA sets many initialization parameters to manage
components of the SGA and instance PGA individually.

If you create a database with Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) and choose the basic installation
option, then automatic memory management is the default.

The memory structures include three areas of memory:

· System Global Area (SGA) – this is allocated when an Oracle Instance starts up.

· Program Global Area (PGA) – this is allocated when a Server Process starts up.

By Anand Harsha 46
· User Global Area (UGA) – this is allocated when a user connects to create a session.

System Global Area

The SGA is a read/write memory area that stores information shared by all database processes and by
all users of the database (sometimes it is called the Shared Global Area).

o This information includes both organizational data and control information used by the Oracle Server.

o The SGA is allocated in memory and virtual memory.

o The size of the SGA can be established by a DBA by assigning a value to the parameter SGA_MAX_SIZE in
the parameter file—this is an optional parameter.

The SGA is allocated when an Oracle instance (database) is started up based on values specified in the
initialization parameter file (either PFILE or SPFILE).

The SGA has the following mandatory memory structures:

· Database Buffer Cache

· Redo Log Buffer

· Java Pool

· Streams Pool

· Shared Pool – includes two components:

o Library Cache

o Data Dictionary Cache

· Other structures (for example, lock and latch management, statistical data)

Additional optional memory structures in the SGA include:

· Large Pool

By Anand Harsha 47
 The SHOW SGA SQL command will show you the SGA memory allocations.

· This is a recent clip of the SGA for the DBORCL database at SIUE.

· In order to execute SHOW SGA you must be connected with the special privilege SYSDBA (which is
only available to user accounts that are members of the DBA Linux group).

Early versions of Oracle used a Static SGA. This meant that if modifications to memory management
were required, the database had to be shutdown, modifications were made to the init.ora parameter
file, and then the database had to be restarted.

Oracle 11g uses a Dynamic SGA. Memory configurations for the system global area can be made
without shutting down the database instance. The DBA can resize the Database Buffer Cache and
Shared Pool dynamically.

Several initialization parameters are set that affect the amount of random access memory dedicated to
the SGA of an Oracle Instance. These are:

· SGA_MAX_SIZE: This optional parameter is used to set a limit on the amount of virtual
memory allocated to the SGA – a typical setting might be 1 GB; however, if the value
for SGA_MAX_SIZE in the initialization parameter file or server parameter file is less than the sum the
memory allocated for all components, either explicitly in the parameter file or by default, at the time the
instance is initialized, then the database ignores the setting for SGA_MAX_SIZE. For optimal
performance, the entire SGA should fit in real memory to eliminate paging to/from disk by the operating
system.

· DB_CACHE_SIZE: This optional parameter is used to tune the amount memory allocated to the
Database Buffer Cache in standard database blocks. Block sizes vary among operating systems. The
DBORCL database uses 8 KB blocks. The total blocks in the cache defaults to 48 MB on LINUX/UNIX
and 52 MB on Windows operating systems.

· LOG_BUFFER: This optional parameter specifies the number of bytes allocated for the Redo Log
Buffer.

· SHARED_POOL_SIZE: This optional parameter specifies the number of bytes of memory allocated to
shared SQL and PL/SQL. The default is 16 MB. If the operating system is based on a 64
bit configuration, then the default size is 64 MB.

By Anand Harsha 48
· LARGE_POOL_SIZE: This is an optional memory object – the size of the Large Pool defaults to zero. If
the init.ora parameter PARALLEL_AUTOMATIC_TUNING is set to TRUE, then the default size is
automatically calculated.

· JAVA_POOL_SIZE: This is another optional memory object. The default is 24 MB of memory.

The size of the SGA cannot exceed the parameter SGA_MAX_SIZE minus the combination of the size of
the additional parameters, DB_CACHE_SIZE, LOG_BUFFER, SHARED_POOL_SIZE, LARGE_POOL_SIZE,
and JAVA_POOL_SIZE.

Memory is allocated to the SGA as contiguous virtual memory in units termed granules. Granule size
depends on the estimated total size of the SGA, which as was noted above, depends on the
SGA_MAX_SIZE parameter. Granules are sized as follows:

· If the SGA is less than 1 GB in total, each granule is 4 MB.

· If the SGA is greater than 1 GB in total, each granule is 16 MB.

Granules are assigned to the Database Buffer Cache, Shared Pool, Java Pool, and other memory
structures, and these memory components can dynamically grow and shrink. Using contiguous memory
improves system performance. The actual number of granules assigned to one of these memory
components can be determined by querying the database view named V$BUFFER_POOL.

Granules are allocated when the Oracle server starts a database instance in order to provide memory
addressing space to meet the SGA_MAX_SIZE parameter. The minimum is 3 granules: one each for the
fixed SGA, Database Buffer Cache, and Shared Pool. In practice, you'll find the SGA is allocated much
more memory than this. The SELECT statement shown below shows a current_size of 1,152 granules.

SELECT name, block_size, current_size, prev_size, prev_buffers

FROM v$buffer_pool;

NAME BLOCK_SIZE CURRENT_SIZE PREV_SIZE PREV_BUFFERS

-------------------- ---------- ------------ ---------- ------------

By Anand Harsha 49
 DEFAULT 8192 560 576 71244

For additional information on the dynamic SGA sizing, enroll in Oracle's Oracle11g Database
Performance Tuning course.

Program Global Area (PGA)

A PGA is:

· a nonshared memory region that contains data and control information exclusively for use by an Oracle
process.

· A PGA is created by Oracle Database when an Oracle process is started.

· One PGA exists for each Server Process and each Background Process. It stores data and control
information for a single Server Process or a single Background Process.

· It is allocated when a process is created and the memory is scavenged by the operating system when
the process terminates. This is NOT a shared part of memory – one PGA to each process only.

· The collection of individual PGAs is the total instance PGA, or instance PGA.

· Database initialization parameters set the size of the instance PGA, not individual PGAs.

The Program Global Area is also termed the Process Global Area (PGA) and is a part of memory
allocated that is outside of the Oracle Instance.

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 The content of the PGA varies, but as shown in the figure above, generally includes the following:

· Private SQL Area: Stores information for a parsed SQL statement – stores bind variable values and
runtime memory allocations. A user session issuing SQL statements has a Private SQL Area that may be

By Anand Harsha 51
 associated with a Shared SQL Area if the same SQL statement is being executed by more than one
system user. This often happens in OLTP environments where many users are executing and using the
same application program.

o Dedicated Server environment – the Private SQL Area is located in the Program Global Area.

o Shared Server environment – the Private SQL Area is located in the System Global Area.

· Session Memory: Memory that holds session variables and other session information.

· SQL Work Areas: Memory allocated for sort, hash-join, bitmap merge, and bitmap create types of
operations.

o Oracle 9i and later versions enable automatic sizing of the SQL Work Areas by setting
the WORKAREA_SIZE_POLICY = AUTO parameter (this is the default!) and PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET =
n (where n is some amount of memory established by the DBA). However, the DBA can let the Oracle
DBMS determine the appropriate amount of memory.

Automatic Shared Memory Management

Prior to Oracle 10G, a DBA had to manually specify SGA Component sizes through the initialization
parameters, such as SHARED_POOL_SIZE, DB_CACHE_SIZE, JAVA_POOL_SIZE, and LARGE_POOL_SIZE
parameters.

Automatic Shared Memory Management enables a DBA to specify the total SGA memory available
through the SGA_TARGET initialization parameter. The Oracle Database automatically distributes this
memory among various subcomponents to ensure most effective memory utilization.

The DBORCL database SGA_TARGET is set in the initDBORCL.ora file:

sga_target=1610612736

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With automatic SGA memory management, the different SGA components are flexibly sized to adapt to
the SGA available.

Setting a single parameter simplifies the administration task – the DBA only specifies the amount of SGA
memory available to an instance – the DBA can forget about the sizes of individual components. No out
of memory errors are generated unless the system has actually run out of memory. No manual tuning
effort is needed.

The SGA_TARGET initialization parameter reflects the total size of the SGA and includes memory for the
following components:

 Fixed SGA and other internal allocations needed by the Oracle Database instance
 The log buffer
 The shared pool
 The Java pool
 The buffer cache
 The keep and recycle buffer caches (if specified)
 Nonstandard block size buffer caches (if specified)
 The Streams Pool

If SGA_TARGET is set to a value greater than SGA_MAX_SIZE at startup, then the SGA_MAX_SIZE value
is bumped up to accommodate SGA_TARGET.

When you set a value for SGA_TARGET, Oracle Database 11g automatically sizes the most commonly
configured components, including:

 The shared pool (for SQL and PL/SQL execution)

 The Java pool (for Java execution state)
 The large pool (for large allocations such as RMAN backup buffers)
 The buffer cache

There are a few SGA components whose sizes are not automatically adjusted. The DBA must specify the
sizes of these components explicitly, if they are needed by an application. Such components are:

 Keep/Recycle buffer caches (controlled

by DB_KEEP_CACHE_SIZE and DB_RECYCLE_CACHE_SIZE)
 Additional buffer caches for non-standard block sizes (controlled by DB_nK_CACHE_SIZE, n = {2,
4, 8, 16, 32})
 Streams Pool (controlled by the new parameter STREAMS_POOL_SIZE)

By Anand Harsha 53
 The granule size that is currently being used for the SGA for each component can be viewed in the
view V$SGAINFO. The size of each component and the time and type of the last resize operation
performed on each component can be viewed in the view V$SGA_DYNAMIC_COMPONENTS.

Shared-Pool

The Shared Pool is a memory structure that is shared by all system users.

· It caches various types of program data. For example, the shared pool stores parsed SQL, PL/SQL code,
system parameters, and data dictionary information.

· The shared pool is involved in almost every operation that occurs in the database. For example, if a
user executes a SQL statement, then Oracle Database accesses the shared pool.

· It consists of both fixed and variable structures.

· The variable component grows and shrinks depending on the demands placed on memory size by
system users and application programs.

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 Memory can be allocated to the Shared Pool by the parameter SHARED_POOL_SIZE in the parameter
file. The default value of this parameter is 8MB on 32-bit platforms and 64MB on 64-bit platforms.
Increasing the value of this parameter increases the amount of memory reserved for the shared pool.

You can alter the size of the shared pool dynamically with the ALTER SYSTEM SET command. An
example command is shown in the figure below. You must keep in mind that the total memory
allocated to the SGA is set by the SGA_TARGET parameter (and may also be limited by
the SGA_MAX_SIZE if it is set), and since the Shared Pool is part of the SGA, you cannot exceed the
maximum size of the SGA. It is recommended to let Oracle optimize the Shared Pool size.

The Shared Pool stores the most recently executed SQL statements and used data definitions. This is
because some system users and application programs will tend to execute the same SQL statements
often. Saving this information in memory can improve system performance.

The Shared Pool includes several cache areas described below.

Library Cache

Memory is allocated to the Library Cache whenever an SQL statement is parsed or a program unit is
called. This enables storage of the most recently used SQL and PL/SQL statements.

If the Library Cache is too small, the Library Cache must purge statement definitions in order to have
space to load new SQL and PL/SQL statements. Actual management of this memory structure is through
a Least-Recently-Used (LRU) algorithm. This means that the SQL and PL/SQL statements that are oldest
and least recently used are purged when more storage space is needed.

The Library Cache is composed of two memory subcomponents:

· Shared SQL: This stores/shares the execution plan and parse tree for SQL statements, as well as
PL/SQL statements such as functions, packages, and triggers. If a system user executes an identical
statement, then the statement does not have to be parsed again in order to execute the statement.

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· Private SQL Area: With a shared server, each session issuing a SQL statement has a private SQL area
in its PGA.

o Each user that submits the same statement has a private SQL area pointing to the same shared SQL area.

o Many private SQL areas in separate PGAs can be associated with the same shared SQL area.

o This figure depicts two different client processes issuing the same SQL statement – the parsed solution is
already in the Shared SQL Area.

Data Dictionary Cache

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 The Data Dictionary Cache is a memory structure that caches data dictionary information that has been
recently used.

· This cache is necessary because the data dictionary is accessed so often.

· Information accessed includes user account information, datafile names, table descriptions, user
privileges, and other information.

The database server manages the size of the Data Dictionary Cache internally and the size depends on
the size of the Shared Pool in which the Data Dictionary Cache resides. If the size is too small, then the
data dictionary tables that reside on disk must be queried often for information and this will slow down
performance.

Server Result Cache

The Server Result Cache holds result sets and not data blocks. The server result cache contains the SQL
query result cache and PL/SQL function result cache, which share the same infrastructure.

SQL Query Result Cache

This cache stores the results of queries and query fragments.

· Using the cache results for future queries tends to improve performance.

· For example, suppose an application runs the same SELECT statement repeatedly. If the results are
cached, then the database returns them immediately.

· In this way, the database avoids the expensive operation of rereading blocks and recomputing results.

PL/SQL Function Result Cache

The PL/SQL Function Result Cache stores function result sets.

· Without caching, 1000 calls of a function at 1 second per call would take 1000 seconds.

By Anand Harsha 57
· With caching, 1000 function calls with the same inputs could take 1 second total.

· Good candidates for result caching are frequently invoked functions that depend on relatively static
data.

· PL/SQL function code can specify that results be cached.

Buffer Caches

A number of buffer caches are maintained in memory in order to improve system response time.

Database Buffer Cache

The Database Buffer Cache is a fairly large memory object that stores the actual data blocks that are
retrieved from datafiles by system queries and other data manipulation language commands.

The purpose is to optimize physical input/output of data.

When Database Smart Flash Cache (flash cache) is enabled, part of the buffer cache can reside in the
flash cache.

· This buffer cache extension is stored on a flash disk device, which is a solid state storage device that
uses flash memory.

· The database can improve performance by caching buffers in flash memory instead of reading from
magnetic disk.

· Database Smart Flash Cache is available only in Solaris and Oracle Enterprise Linux.

A query causes a Server Process to look for data.

· The first look is in the Database Buffer Cache to determine if the requested information happens to
already be located in memory – thus the information would not need to be retrieved from disk and this
would speed up performance.

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· If the information is not in the Database Buffer Cache, the Server Process retrieves the information
from disk and stores it to the cache.

· Keep in mind that information read from disk is read a block at a time, NOT a row at a time, because a
database block is the smallest addressable storage space on disk.

Database blocks are kept in the Database Buffer Cache according to a Least Recently Used (LRU)
algorithm and are aged out of memory if a buffer cache block is not used in order to provide space for
the insertion of newly needed database blocks.

There are three buffer states:

· Unused - a buffer is available for use - it has never been used or is currently unused.

· Clean - a buffer that was used earlier - the data has been written to disk.

· Dirty - a buffer that has modified data that has not been written to disk.

Each buffer has one of two access modes:

· Pinned - a buffer is pinned so it does not age out of memory.

· Free (unpinned).

The buffers in the cache are organized in two lists:

· the write list and,

· the least recently used (LRU) list.

The write list (also called a write queue) holds dirty buffers – these are buffers that hold that data that
has been modified, but the blocks have not been written back to disk.

The LRU list holds unused, free clean buffers, pinned buffers, and free dirty buffers that have not yet
been moved to the write list. Free clean buffers do not contain any useful data and are available for
use. Pinned buffers are currently being accessed.

By Anand Harsha 59
When an Oracle process accesses a buffer, the process moves the buffer to the most recently used
(MRU) end of the LRU list – this causes dirty buffers to age toward the LRU end of the LRU list.

When an Oracle user process needs a data row, it searches for the data in the database buffer cache
because memory can be searched more quickly than hard disk can be accessed. If the data row is
already in the cache (a cache hit), the process reads the data from memory; otherwise a cache
miss occurs and data must be read from hard disk into the database buffer cache.

Before reading a data block into the cache, the process must first find a free buffer. The process
searches the LRU list, starting at the LRU end of the list. The search continues until a free buffer is found
or until the search reaches the threshold limit of buffers.

Each time a user process finds a dirty buffer as it searches the LRU, that buffer is moved to the write list
and the search for a free buffer continues.

When a user process finds a free buffer, it reads the data block from disk into the buffer and moves the
buffer to the MRU end of the LRU list.

If an Oracle user process searches the threshold limit of buffers without finding a free buffer, the
process stops searching the LRU list and signals the DBWn background process to write some of the dirty
buffers to disk. This frees up some buffers.

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 Redo Log Buffer

The Redo Log Buffer memory object stores images of all changes made to database blocks.

· Database blocks typically store several table rows of organizational data. This means that if a single
column value from one row in a block is changed, the block image is stored. Changes include INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, ALTER, or DROP.

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· LGWR writes redo sequentially to disk while DBWn performs scattered writes of data blocks to disk.

o Scattered writes tend to be much slower than sequential writes.

o Because LGWR enable users to avoid waiting for DBWn to complete its slow writes, the database delivers
better performance.

The Redo Log Buffer as a circular buffer that is reused over and over. As the buffer fills up, copies of the
images are stored to the Redo Log Files that are covered in more detail in a later module.

Large Pool

The Large Pool is an optional memory structure that primarily relieves the memory burden placed on
the Shared Pool. The Large Pool is used for the following tasks if it is allocated:

· Allocating space for session memory requirements from the User Global Area where a Shared Server is
in use.

· Transactions that interact with more than one database, e.g., a distributed database scenario.

· Backup and restore operations by the Recovery Manager (RMAN) process.

o RMAN uses this only if the BACKUP_DISK_IO = n and BACKUP_TAPE_IO_SLAVE = TRUE parameters are
set.

o If the Large Pool is too small, memory allocation for backup will fail and memory will be allocated from
the Shared Pool.

· Parallel execution message buffers for parallel server

operations. The PARALLEL_AUTOMATIC_TUNING = TRUE parameter must be set.

The Large Pool size is set with the LARGE_POOL_SIZE parameter – this is not a dynamic parameter. It
does not use an LRU list to manage memory.

By Anand Harsha 62
 Java Pool

The Java Pool is an optional memory object, but is required if the database has Oracle Java installed and
in use for Oracle JVM (Java Virtual Machine).

· The size is set with the JAVA_POOL_SIZE parameter that defaults to 24MB.

· The Java Pool is used for memory allocation to parse Java commands and to store data associated with
Java commands.

· Storing Java code and data in the Java Pool is analogous to SQL and PL/SQL code cached in the Shared
Pool.

Streams Pool

This pool stores data and control structures to support the Oracle Streams feature of Oracle Enterprise
Edition.

· Oracle Steams manages sharing of data and events in a distributed environment.

· It is sized with the parameter STREAMS_POOL_SIZE.

· If STEAMS_POOL_SIZE is not set or is zero, the size of the pool grows dynamically.

Processes

You need to understand three different types of Processes:

· User Process: Starts when a database user requests to connect to an Oracle Server.

· Server Process: Establishes the Connection to an Oracle Instance when a User Process requests
connection – makes the connection for the User Process.

· Background Processes: These start when an Oracle Instance is started up.

Client Process

By Anand Harsha 63
In order to use Oracle, you must connect to the database. This must occur whether you're using
SQLPlus, an Oracle tool such as Designer or Forms, or an application program. The client process is also
termed the user process in some Oracle documentation.

Server Process

By Anand Harsha 64
 A Server Process is the go-between for a Client Process and the Oracle Instance.

· Dedicated Server environment – there is a single Server Process to serve each Client Process.

· Shared Server environment – a Server Process can serve several User Processes, although with some
performance reduction.

· Allocation of server process in a dedicated environment versus a shared environment is covered in

further detail in the Oracle11g Database Performance Tuning course offered by Oracle Education.

Background Processes

As is shown here, there are both mandatory, optional, and slave background processes that are started
whenever an Oracle Instance starts up. These background processes serve all system users. We will
cover mandatory process in detail.

Mandatory Background Processes

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· Process Monitor Process (PMON)

· System Monitor Process (SMON)

· Database Writer Process (DBWn)

· Log Writer Process (LGWR)

· Checkpoint Process (CKPT)

· Manageability Monitor Processes (MMON and MMNL)

· Recover Process (RECO)

Optional Processes

· Archiver Process (ARCn)

· Coordinator Job Queue (CJQ0)

· Dispatcher (number “nnn”) (Dnnn)

· Others

This query will display all background processes running to serve a database:

SELECT PNAME

FROM V$PROCESS

WHERE PNAME IS NOT NULL

ORDER BY PNAME;

PMON

The Process Monitor (PMON) monitors other background processes.

 It is a cleanup type of process that cleans up after failed processes.

By Anand Harsha 66
  Examples include the dropping of a user connection due to a network failure or the abnormal
termination (ABEND) of a user application program.
 It cleans up the database buffer cache and releases resources that were used by a failed user
process.
 It does the tasks shown in the figure below.

SMON

 The System Monitor (SMON) does system-level cleanup duties.

 It is responsible for instance recovery by applying entries in the online redo log files to the
datafiles. Other processes can call SMON when it is needed.
 It also performs other activities as outlined in the figure shown below.

By Anand Harsha 67
If an Oracle Instance fails, all information in memory not written to disk is lost. SMON is responsible for
recovering the instance when the database is started up again. It does the following:

 Rolls forward to recover data that was recorded in a Redo Log File, but that had not yet been
recorded to a datafile by DBWn. SMON reads the Redo Log Files and applies the changes to the
data blocks. This recovers all transactions that were committed because these were written to
the Redo Log Files prior to system failure.
 Opens the database to allow system users to logon.
 Rolls back uncommitted transactions.

SMON also does limited space management. It combines (coalesces) adjacent areas of free space in the
database's datafiles for tablespaces that are dictionary managed.

It also deallocates temporary segments to create free space in the datafiles.

DBWn (also called DBWR in earlier Oracle Versions)

The Database Writer writes modified blocks from the database buffer cache to the datafiles.

By Anand Harsha 68
  One database writer process (DBW0) is sufficient for most systems.
 A DBA can configure up to 20 DBWn processes (DBW0 through DBW9 and DBWa through DBWj)
in order to improve write performance for a system that modifies data heavily.
 The initialization parameter DB_WRITER_PROCESSES specifies the number of DBWn processes.

The purpose of DBWn is to improve system performance by caching writes of database blocks from
the Database Buffer Cache back to datafiles.

 Blocks that have been modified and that need to be written back to disk are termed "dirty
blocks."
 The DBWn also ensures that there are enough free buffers in the Database Buffer Cache to
service Server Processes that may be reading data from datafiles into the Database Buffer Cache
 Performance improves because by delaying writing changed database blocks back to disk, a
Server Process may find the data that is needed to meet a User Process request already residing
in memory!
 DBWn writes to datafiles when one of these events occurs that is illustrated in the figure below.

LGWR

The Log Writer (LGWR) writes contents from the Redo Log Buffer to the Redo Log File that is in use.

 These are sequential writes since the Redo Log Files record database modifications based on the
actual time that the modification takes place.

By Anand Harsha 69
  LGWR actually writes before the DBWn writes and only confirms that a COMMIT operation has
succeeded when the Redo Log Buffer contents are successfully written to disk.
 LGWR can also call the DBWn to write contents of the Database Buffer Cache to disk.
 The LGWR writes according to the events illustrated in the figure shown below.

CKPT

The Checkpoint (CPT) process writes information to update the database control files and headers of
datafiles.

 A checkpoint identifies a point in time with regard to the Redo Log Files where instance
recovery is to begin should it be necessary.
 It can tell DBWn to write blocks to disk.
 A checkpoint is taken at a minimum, once every three seconds.

By Anand Harsha 70
Think of a checkpoint record as a starting point for recovery. DBWn will have completed writing all
buffers from the Database Buffer Cache to disk prior to the checkpoint, thus those records will not
require recovery. This does the following:

 Ensures modified data blocks in memory are regularly written to disk – CKPT can call the DBWn
process in order to ensure this and does so when writing a checkpoint record.
 Reduces Instance Recovery time by minimizing the amount of work needed for recovery since
only Redo Log File entries processed since the last checkpoint require recovery.
 Causes all committed data to be written to datafiles during database shutdown.

By Anand Harsha 71
By Anand Harsha 72
 Unit – IVth

SQL
• SQL stands for Structured Query Language

• SQL lets you access and manipulate databases

• SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard

SQL is a declarative (non-procedural)language. SQL is (usually) not case-sensitive,

but we’ll write SQL keywords in upper case for emphasis.

Some database systems require a semicolon at the end of each SQL statement.

A table is database object that holds user data. Each column of the table will have specified data type
bound to it. Oracle ensures that only data, which is identical to the datatype of the column, will be
stored within the column.

SQL DML and DDL

SQL can be divided into two parts:

The Data Definition Language (DDL) and the Data Manipulation Language (DML).

Data Definition Language (DDL)

It is a set of SQL commands used to create, modify and delete database structure

but not data. It also define indexes (keys), specify links between tables, and

impose constraints between tables. DDL commands are auto COMMIT.

The most important DDL statements in SQL are:

• CREATE TABLE - creates a new table

• ALTER TABLE - modifies a table

TRUNCATE TABLE- deletes all records from a table

DROP TABLE - deletes a table

Data Manipulation Language (DML)

By Anand Harsha 73
It is the area of SQL that allows changing data within the database. The query

and update commands form the DML part of SQL:

• INSERT - inserts new data into a database

• SELECT - extracts data from a database

• UPDATE - updates data in a database

• DELETE - deletes data from a database

Data Control Language (DCL)

It is the component of SQL statement that control access to data and to the

database. Occasionally DCL statements are grouped with DML Statements.

COMMIT –Save work done.

SAVEPOINT – Identify a point in a transaction to which you can later rollback.

ROLLBACK – Restore database to original since the last COMMIT.

GRANT – gives user’s access privileges to database.

REVOKE – withdraw access privileges given with GRANT command.

Basic Data Types

By Anand Harsha 74
The CREATE TABLE Command:
The CREATE TABLE command defines each column of the table uniquely. Each

column has a minimum of three attributes, name, datatype and size(i.e column

width).each table column definition is a single clause in the create table syntax.

Each table column definition is separated from the other by a comma. Finally, the

By Anand Harsha 75
SQL statement is terminated with a semi colon.

Rules for Creating Tables

 A name can have maximum upto 30 characters.
 Alphabets from A-Z, a-z and numbers from 0-9 are allowed.
 A name should begin with an alphabet.
 The use of the special character like _(underscore) is allowed.
 SQL reserved words not allowed. For example: create, select, alter.

Syntax:

CREATE TABLE <tablename>

(<columnName1> <Datatype>(<size>),

<columnName2> <Datatype>(<size>), ....... );

Example:

CREATE TABLE gktab

(Regno NUMBER(3),

Name VARCHAR(20),

Gender CHAR,

Dob DATE,

Course CHAR(5));

Inserting Data into Tables

Once a table is created, the most natural thing to do is load this table with data to

be manipulated later.

When inserting a single row of data into the table, the insert operation:

 Creates a new row(empty) in the database table.

By Anand Harsha 76
  Loads the values passed(by the SQL insert) into the columns specified.

Syntax:

INSERT INTO <tablename>(<columnname1>, <columnname2>, ..)

Values(<expression1>,<expression2>...);

Example:

INSERT INTO gktab(regno,name,gender,dob,course)

VALUES(101,’Varsh G Kalyan’,’F’,’20-Sep-1985’,’BCA’);

Or you can use the below method to insert the data into table.

INSERT INTO gktab VALUES(102,’Mohith G Kalyan’,’M’,’20-Aug-1980’,’BBM’);

INSERT INTO gktab VALUES(106,’Nisarga’,’F’,’15-Jul-1983’,’BCom’);

INSERT INTO gktab VALUES(105,’Eenchara’,’F’,’04-Dec-1985’,’BCA’);

INSERT INTO gktab VALUES(103,’Ravi K’,’M’,’29-Mar-1989’,’BCom’);

INSERT INTO gktab VALUES(104,’Roopa’,’F’,’17-Jan-1984’,’BBM’);

Whenever you work on the data which has data types like

CHAR,VARCHAR/VARCHAR2, DATE should be used between single quote(‘)

Viewing Data in the Tables

Once data has been inserted into a table, the next most logical operation would be

to view what has been inserted. The SELECT SQL verb is used to achieve this. The

SELECT command is used to retrieve rows selected from one or more tables.

All Rows and All Columns

SELECT * FROM <tablename>

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SELECT * FROM gktab;

It shows all rows and column data in the table

Filtering Table Data

While viewing data from a table it is rare that all the data from the table will be

required each time. Hence, SQL provides a method of filtering table data that is

not required.

The ways of filtering table data are:

 Selected columns and all rows

 Selected rows and all columns
 Selected columns and selected rows

Selected Columns and All Rows

The retrieval of specific columns from a table can be done as shown below.

Syntax

SELECT <columnname1>, <Columnname2> FROM <tablename>

Example

Show only Regno, Name and Course from gktab.

SELECT Regno, Name, Course FROM gktab;

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Selected Rows and All Columns
The WHERE clause is used to extract only those records that fulfill a specified

criterion.

When a WHERE clause is added to the SQL query, the Oracle engine compares

each record in the table with condition specified in the WHERE clause. The Oracle

engine displays only those records that satisfy the specified condition.

Syntax

SELECT * FROM <tablename> WHERE <condition>;

Here, <condition> is always quantified as <columnname=value>

When specifying a condition in the WHERE clause all standard operators such as

logical, arithmetic and so on, can be used.

Example-1:

Display all the students from BCA.

SELECT * FROM gktab WHERE Course=’BCA’;

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Example-2:

Display the student whose regno is 102.

SELECT * FROM gktab WHERE Regno=102;

Selected Columns and Selected Rows

To view a specific set of rows and columns from a table

When a WHERE clause is added to the SQL query, the Oracle engine compares

each record in the table with condition specified in the WHERE clause. The Oracle

engine displays only those records that satisfy the specified condition.

Syntax

SELECT <columnname1>, <Columnname2> FROM <tablename>

WHERE <condition>;

Example-1:

List the student’s Regno, Name for the Course BCA.

SELECT Regno, Name FROM gktab WHERE Course=’BCA’;

Example-2:

List the student’s Regno, Name, Gender for the Course BBM.

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SELECT Regno, Name, Gender FROM gktab WHERE Course=’BBM’;

Eliminating Duplicate Rows when using a SELECT statement

A table could hold duplicate rows. In such a case, to view only unique rows the

DISTINCT clause can be used.

The DISTINCT clause allows removing duplicates from the result set. The

DISTINCT clause can only be used with SELECT statements.

The DISTINCT clause scans through the values of the column/s specified and

displays only unique values from amongst them.

Syntax

SELECT DISTINCT <columnname1>, <Columnname2>

FROM <Tablename>;

Example:

Show different courses from gktab

SELECT DISTINCT Course from gktab;

Sorting Data in a Table

Oracle allows data from a table to be viewed in a sorted order. The rows retrieved

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from the table will be sorted in either ascending or descending order depending

on the condition specified in the SELECT sentence.

Syntax

SELECT * FROM <tablename>

ORDER BY <Columnname1>,<Columnname2> <[Sort Order]>;

The ORDER BY clause sorts the result set based on the column specified. The

ORDER BY clause can only be used in SELECT statements.

The Oracle engine sorts in ascending order by default

Example-1:

Show details of students according to Regno.

SELECT * FROM gktab ORDER BY Regno;

Example-2:

Show the details of students names in descending order.

SELECT * FROM gktab ORDER BY Name DESC;

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DELETE Operations
The DELETE command deletes rows from the table that satisfies the condition

provided by its WHERE clause, and returns the number of records deleted.

The verb DELETE in SQL is used to remove either

Specific row(s) from a table

OR

All the rows from a table

Removal of Specific Row(s)

Syntax:

DELETE FROM tablename WHERE Condition;

Example:

DELETE FROM gktab WHERE Regno=103;

1 rows deleted

SELECT * FROM gktab;

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In the above table, the Regno 103 is deleted from the table

Remove of ALL Rows

Syntax

DELETE FROM tablename;

Example

DELETE FROM gktab;

6 rows deleted

SELECT * FROM gktab;

no rows selected

Once the table is deleted, use Rollback to undo the above operations.

UPDATING THE CONTENTS OF A TABLE

The UPDATE Command is used to change or modify data values in a table. The verb update in SQL is
used to either updates:

ALL the rows from a table.

OR

A select set of rows from a table.

Updating all rows

The UPDATE statement updates columns in the existing table’s rows with a new values. The SET clause
indicates which column data should be modified and the new values that they should hold. The WHERE
clause, if given, specifies which rows should be updated. Otherwise, all table rows are updated.

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Syntax:

UPDATE tablename

SET columnname1=expression1, columnname2=expression2;

Example: update the gktab table by changing its course to BCA.

UPDATE gktab SET course=’BCA’;

6 rows updated

SELECT * FROM gktab;

In the above table, the course is changed to BCA for all the rows in the table.

Updating Records Conditionally

If you want to update a specific set of rows in table, then WHERE clause is used.

Syntax:

UPDATE tablename

SET Columnname1=Expression1, Columnname2=Expression2

WHERE Condition;

Example:

Update gktab table by changing the course BCA to BBM for Regno 102.

UPDATE gktab SET Course=’BBM’ WHERE Regno=102;

1 rows updated

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SELECT * FROM gktab;

MODIFYING THE STRUCTURE OF TABLES

The structure of a table can be modified by using the ALTER TABLE command. ALTER TABLE allows
changing the structure of an existing table. With ALTER TABLE if is possible to add or delete columns,
create or destroy indexes, change the data type of existing columns, or rename columns or the table
itself.

ALTER TABLE works by making a temporary copy of the original table. The

alteration is performed on the copy, then the original table is deleted and the new

one is renamed. While ALTER TABLE is executing, the original table is still

readable by the users of ORACLE.

Restrictions on the ALTER TABLE

The following task cannot be performed when using the ALTER TABLE Clause:

 Change the name of the table.

 Change the name of the Column.
 Decrease the size of a column if table data exists.

ALTER TABLE Command can perform

 Adding New Columns.
 Dropping A Column from a Table.

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  Modifying Existing Columns.

Adding New Columns

Syntax:

ALTER TABLE tablename

ADD(NewColumnname1 Datatype(size),

NewColumnname2 Datatype(size).....);

Example: Enter a new filed Phno to gktab.

ALTER TABLE gktab ADD(Phno number(10));

The table is altered with new column Phno

Select * from gktab;

You can also use DESC gktab, to see the new column added to table.

Dropping A Column from a Table.

Syntax:

ALTER TABLE tablename DROP COLUMN Columnname;

Example: Drop the column Phno from gktab.

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ALTER TABLE gktab DROP COLUMN Phno;

The table is altered, the column Phno is removed from the table.

Select * from gktab;

You can also use DESC gktab, to see the column removed from the table.

Modifying Existing Columns.

Syntax:

ALTER TABLE tablename

MODIFY(Columnname Newdatatype(Newsize));

Example:

ALTER TABLE gktab MODIFY(Name VARCHAR(25));

The table altered with new size value 25.

DESC gktab;

RENAMING TABLES
Oracle allows renaming of tables. The rename operation is done atomically, which

means that no other thread can access any of the tables while the rename process

is running.

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Syntax

RENAME tablename TO newtablename;

TRUNCATING TABLES
TRUNCATE command deletes the rows in the table permanently.

Syntax:

TRUNCATE TABLE tablename;

The number of deleted rows are not returned. Truncate operations drop and re-

create the table, which is much faster than deleting rows one by one.

Example:

TRUNCATE TABLE gktab;

Table truncated i.e., all the rows are deleted permanently.

DESTROYING TABLES
Sometimes tables within a particular database become obsolete and need to be

discarded. In such situation using the DROP TABLE statement with table name

can destroy a specific table.

Syntax:

DROP TABLE tablename;

Example:

DROP TABLE gktab;

If a table is dropped all the records held within and the structure of the table is

lost and cannot be recovered.

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COMMIT and ROLLBACK

Commit
Commit command is used to permanently save any transaction into database.

SQL> commit;

Rollback
Rollback is used to undo the changes made by any command but only before a

commit is done. We can't Rollback data which has been committed in the database

with the help of the commit keyword or DDL Commands, because DDL commands

are auto commit commands.

SQL> Rollback;

Difference between DELETE and DROP.

The DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. After performing a

DELETE operation you need to COMMIT or ROLLBACK the transaction to make the

change permanent or to undo it.

The DROP command removes a table from the database. All the tables' rows,

indexes and privileges will also be removed. The operation cannot be rolled back.

Difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE.

The DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. After performing a

DELETE operation you need to COMMIT or ROLLBACK the transaction to make the

change permanent or to undo it.

TRUNCATE removes all rows from a table. The operation cannot be rolled back.

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Difference between CHAR and VARCHAR.
CHAR
1. Used to store fixed length data.

2. The maximum characters the data type can hold is 255 characters.

3. It's 50% faster than VARCHAR.

4. Uses static memory allocation.

VARCHAR
1. Used to store variable length data.

2. The maximum characters the data type can hold is up to 4000 characters.

3. It's slower than CHAR.

4. Uses dynamic memory allocation.

DATA CONSTRINTS
Oracle permits data constraints to be attached to table column via SQL syntax that checks data for
integrity prior storage. Once data constraints are part of a table column construct, the oracle database
engine checks the data being entered into a table column against the data constraints. If the data passes
this check, it is stored in the table column, else the data is rejected. Even if a single column of the record
being entered into the table fails a constraint, the entire record is rejected and not stored in the table.

Both CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE SQL verbs can be used to write SQL sentences that attach
constraints to a table column. The constraints are a keyword. The constraint is rules that restrict the
values for one or more columns in a table. The Oracle Server uses constraints to prevent invalid data
entry into tables. The constraints store the validate data and without constraints we can just store
invalid data. The constraints are an important part of the table.

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Primary Key Constraint
A primary key can consist of one or more columns on a table. Primary key constraints define a column or
series of columns that uniquely identify a given row in a table. Defining a primary key on a table is
optional and you can only define a single primary key on a table. A primary key constraint can consist of
one or many

columns (up to 32). When multiple columns are used as a primary key, they are called a composite key.
Any column that is defined as a primary key column is automatically set with a NOT NULL status. The
Primary key constraint can be applied at column level and table level.

Foreign Key Constraint

A foreign key constraint is used to enforce a relationship between two tables. A foreign key is a column
(or a group of columns) whose values are derived from the Primary key or unique key of some other
table. The table in which the foreign key is defined is called a Foreign table or Detail table. The table that
defines primary key or unique key and is referenced by the foreign key is called Primary table or Master
table. The master table can be referenced in the foreign key definition by using the clause REFERENCES
Tablename.ColumnName when defining the foreign key,column attributes, in the detail table. The
foreign key constraint can be applied at

column level and table level.

Unique Key Constraint

Unique key will not allow duplicate values. A table can have more than one Unique

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key. A unique constraint defines a column, or series of columns, that must be

unique in value. The UNIQUE constraint can be applied at column level and table

level.

CHECK Constraint
Business Rule validation can be applied to a table column by using CHECk constraint. CHECK constraints
must be specified as a logical expression that evaluates either to TRUE or FALSE.

The CHECK constraint ensures that all values in a column satisfy certain conditions. Once defined, the
database will only insert a new row or update an existing row if the new value satisfies the CHECK
constraint. The CHECK constraint is used to ensure data quality. A CHECK constraint takes substantially
longer to execute as compared to NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY or UNIQUE. The CHECK
constraint can be applied at column level and table level.

NOT NULL Constraint

The NOT NULL column constraint ensures that a table column cannot be left empty. When a column is
defined as not null, then that column becomes a mandatory column. The NOT NULL constraint can only
be applied at column level.

Example on Constraints

Consider the Table shown below

Arithmetic Operators
Oracle allows arithmetic operators to be used while viewing records from a table or

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while performing data manipulation operations such as insert, updated and delete.

These are:

+ Addition

- Subtraction

/ Division

* Multiplication

() Enclosed Operations

Consider the below employee table(gkemp)

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Special Note

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The DUAL table is a special one-row, one-column table present by default in

Oracle and other database installations. Dual is a dummy table.

Logical Operators

Logical operators that can be used in SQL sentence are:

Operators Description

OR :-For the row to be selected at least one of the conditions must be true.

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AND :-For a row to be selected all the specified conditions must be true.

NOT :-For a row to be selected the specified condition must be false.

Consider the below employee table(gkemp)

For example: if you want to find the names of employees who are working either

in Commerce or Arts department, the query would be like,

For example: To find the names of the employee whose salary between10000 to

20000, the query would be like,

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For example: If you want to find out the names of the employee who do not

belong to computer science department, the query would be like,

Range Searching (BETWEEN)

In order to select the data that is within a range of values, the BETWEEN operator is used. The BETWEEN
operator allows the selection of rows that contain values within a specified lower and upper limit. The
range coded after the word BETWEEN is inclusive.

The lower value must be coded first. The two values in between the range must be linked with the
keyword AND. The BETWEEN operator can be used with both character and numeric data types.
However, the data types cannot be mixed.

For example: Find the names of the employee whose salary between10000 and

20000, the query would be like,

Pattern Matching (LIKE, IN, NOT IN)

LIKE
The LIKE predicate allows comparison of one string value with another string value, which is not
identical. this is achieved by using wild characters. Two wild characters that are available are:

For character data types:

% allows to match any string of any length (including zero length).

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_ allows to match on a single character.

IN
The IN operator is used when you want to compare a column with more than one value. It is similar to
an OR condition.

For example: If you want to find the names of company located in the city

Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon, the query would be like,

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NOT IN
The NOT IN operator is opposite to IN.

For example: If you want to find the names of company located in the other city

of Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon, the query would be like,

Column Aliases(Renaming Columns) in Oracle:

Sometimes you want to change the column headers in the report. For this you can use column aliases in
oracle. Oracle has provided excellent object oriented techniques as its robust database. It always good
to practice and implement column aliases since it will make your code readable while using this
columns.

to add column aliases to your sql queries.

Give a column alias name separated by space after the column name.

Select DOB DateofBirth from gkstudent

In the above query, the word in bold is column aliases.

ORACLE FUNCTIONS
Oracle functions serve the purpose of manipulating data items and returning a result. Functions are also
capable of accepting user-supplied variables or constants and operating on them. Such variables or
constants are called arguments. Any number of arguments( or no arguments at all) can be passed to a
function in the following format.

Function_Name(arguments1,arguments2.....)

Oracle functions can be clubbed together depending upon whether they operate on a single row or a
group of rows retrieved from a table. Accordingly, functions can be classified as follows:

 Group Functions(Aggregate Functions): Function that act on a set of values are called group
functions.

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  Scalar Functions(Single Row Functions): Function that act on only one value at a time are called
scalar functions.

 String Functions: for string data type

 Numeric functions: for Number data type
 Conversion function: for conversion of one data type to another.
 Date conversions: for date data type.

a) SQL Aggregate / Group Functions

Group functions return results based on groups of rows, rather than on single rows. returns the number
of rows in the query.SQL aggregate functions return a single value, calculated from values in a column.

Useful aggregate functions:

a) COUNT() - Returns the number of rows

b) AVG() - Returns the average value

c) MAX() - Returns the largest value

d) MIN() - Returns the smallest value

e) SUM() - Returns the total sum

Consider the below employee table(gkemp)

a) COUNT()

The COUNT() function counts number of values present in the column

excluding Null values.

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b) AVG()

The AVG() function returns the average value of a column specified.

c) MAX()

The MAX() function returns the highest value of a particular column.

d) MIN()

The MIN() function returns the smallest value of a particular column.

e) SUM()

The SUM() function returns the sum of column values.

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b) SQL String Functions

SQL string functions are used primarily for string manipulation. The following table details the important
string functions:

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Date Conversion Functions

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SET OPERATORS and JOINS
Set Operators

Consider the below tables for set operators examples

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Set operators combine the result of two quires into single one. The different set

operators are:

UNION

UNION ALL

INTERSECT

MINUS

Union Clause
UNION is used to combine the result of two or more SELECT statements. However

it will eliminate duplicate rows from its result set. In case of UNION, number of

columns in all the query must be same and datatype must be same in both the

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tables.

Intersect Clause
Intersect is used to combine two SELECT statements, but it only returns the records which are common
from both SELECT statement. In case of intersect the number of columns in all the query and datatype
must be same.

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Minus Clause
Minus combines result of two SELECT statement and return only those result which belongs to the first
set of result.

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JOINS
The SQL Joins clause is used to combine records from two or more tables in a database. A JOIN is a
means for combining fields from two tables by using values common to each. Here, it is noticeable that
the join is performed in the WHERE clause. Several operators can be used to join tables, such as =, <, >,
<>, <=, >=, !=, BETWEEN, LIKE, and NOT; they can all be used to join tables. However, the most common

operator is the equal symbol. SQL Join Types:

There are different types of joins available in SQL:

 INNER
 OUTER(LEFT,RIGHT,FULL)
 CROSS

Consider the below tables for Join Operations examples

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INNER Join
Inner join are also known as Equi Joins. They are the most common joins used in SQL. They are known as
equi joins because it uses the equal sign as the comparison operator (=). The INNER join returns all rows
from both tables where there is a match. Consider the above tables (gkproduct and gkorder),

For example: If you want to display the product information for each order the query will be as given
below

OUTER Join
OUTER join condition returns all rows from both tables which satisfy the join condition along with rows
which do not satisfy the join condition from one of the tables. The sql outer join operator in Oracle is (+)
and is used on one side of the join condition only.

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For example: If you want to display all the product data along with order items data, with null values
displayed for order items if a product has no order item, the sql query for outer join would be as shown
below(ie First Query).

NOTE: If the (+) operator is used in the left side of the join condition it is equivalent to left outer join. If
used on the right side of the join condition it is equivalent to right outer join.

OUTER JOIN :
Outer Join retrieves Either, the matched rows from one table and all rows in the

other table Or, all rows in all tables (it doesn't matter whether or not there is a

match).

There are three kinds of Outer Join :

1.LEFT OUTER JOIN or LEFT JOIN

This join returns all the rows from the left table in conjunction with the matching rows from the right
table. If there are no columns matching in the right table, it returns NULL values.

2. RIGHT OUTER JOIN or RIGHT JOIN

This join returns all the rows from the right table in conjunction with the matching rows from the left
table. If there are no columns matching in the left table, it returns NULL values.

3.FULL OUTER JOIN or FULL JOIN

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This join combines left outer join and right outer join. It returns row from either table when the
conditions are met and returns null value when there is no match. In other words, OUTER JOIN is based
on the fact that : ONLY the matching entries in ONE OF the tables (RIGHT or LEFT) or BOTH of the
tables(FULL) SHOULD be listed.

CROSS Join
It is the Cartesian product of the two tables involved. It will return a table with consists of records which
combines each row from the first table with each row of the second table. The result of a CROSS JOIN
will not make sense in most of the situations. Moreover, we won’t need this at all (or needs the least, to
be precise).

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INNER JOIN: returns rows when there is a match in both tables.

LEFT JOIN: returns all rows from the left table, even if there are no matches in the right table.

RIGHT JOIN: returns all rows from the right table, even if there are no matches in the left table.

FULL JOIN: returns rows when there is a match in one of the tables. SELF JOIN: is used to join a table to
itself as if the table were two tables, temporarily renaming at least one table in the SQL statement.

CARTESIAN JOIN: returns the Cartesian product of the sets of records from the two or more joined
tables.

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 Unit - V

Introduction to PL/SQL
PL/SQL is a combination of SQL along with the procedural features of programming languages. It was
developed by Oracle Corporation in the early 90's to enhance the capabilities of SQL. PL/SQL is one of
three key programming languages embedded in the Oracle Database, along with SQL itself and Java. This
tutorial will give you great understanding on PL/SQL to proceed with Oracle database and other
advanced RDBMS concepts.

The PL/SQL programming language was developed by Oracle Corporation in the late 1980s as
procedural extension language for SQL and the Oracle relational database. Following are certain
notable facts about PL/SQL −
 PL/SQL is a completely portable, high-performance transaction-processing language.
 PL/SQL provides a built-in, interpreted and OS independent programming environment.
 PL/SQL can also directly be called from the command-line SQL*Plus interface.
 Direct call can also be made from external programming language calls to database.
 PL/SQL's general syntax is based on that of ADA and Pascal programming language.
 Apart from Oracle, PL/SQL is available in TimesTen in-memory database and IBM DB2.

Features of PL/SQL
PL/SQL has the following features −

 PL/SQL is tightly integrated with SQL.

 It offers extensive error checking.
 It offers numerous data types.
 It offers a variety of programming structures.
 It supports structured programming through functions and procedures.
 It supports object-oriented programming.
 It supports the development of web applications and server pages.

Advantages of PL/SQL
PL/SQL has the following advantages −
 SQL is the standard database language and PL/SQL is strongly integrated with SQL. PL/SQL
supports both static and dynamic SQL. Static SQL supports DML operations and transaction
control from PL/SQL block. In Dynamic SQL, SQL allows embedding DDL statements in PL/SQL
blocks.
 PL/SQL allows sending an entire block of statements to the database at one time. This reduces
network traffic and provides high performance for the applications.

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  PL/SQL gives high productivity to programmers as it can query, transform, and update data in a
database.
 PL/SQL saves time on design and debugging by strong features, such as exception handling,
encapsulation, data hiding, and object-oriented data types.
 Applications written in PL/SQL are fully portable.
 PL/SQL provides high security level.
 PL/SQL provides access to predefined SQL packages.
 PL/SQL provides support for Object-Oriented Programming.
 PL/SQL provides support for developing Web Applications and Server Pages.

PL/SQL Block Structure

In this chapter, we will discuss the Basic Syntax of PL/SQL which is a block-structured language; this
means that the PL/SQL programs are divided and written in logical blocks of code. Each block consists of
three sub-parts –

S.No Sections & Description

Declarations
1
This section starts with the keyword DECLARE. It is an optional section and defines all
variables, cursors, subprograms, and other elements to be used in the program.

Executable Commands

2 This section is enclosed between the keywords BEGIN and END and it is a mandatory
section. It consists of the executable PL/SQL statements of the program. It should have
at least one executable line of code, which may be just a NULL command to indicate that
nothing should be executed.

Exception Handling
3
This section starts with the keyword EXCEPTION. This optional section
contains exception(s) that handle errors in the program.

Every PL/SQL statement ends with a semicolon (;). PL/SQL blocks can be nested within other PL/SQL
blocks using BEGIN and END. Following is the basic structure of a PL/SQL block −
DECLARE
<declarations section>
BEGIN

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 <executable command(s)>
EXCEPTION
<exception handling>
END;

The 'Hello World' Example

DECLARE
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/
The end; line signals the end of the PL/SQL block. To run the code from the SQL command line, you
may need to type / at the beginning of the first blank line after the last line of the code. When the
above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The PL/SQL Identifiers

PL/SQL identifiers are constants, variables, exceptions, procedures, cursors, and reserved words. The
identifiers consist of a letter optionally followed by more letters, numerals, dollar signs, underscores,
and number signs and should not exceed 30 characters.
By default, identifiers are not case-sensitive. So you can use integer or INTEGER to represent a
numeric value. You cannot use a reserved keyword as an identifier.

The PL/SQL Delimiters

A delimiter is a symbol with a special meaning. Following is the list of delimiters in PL/SQL −

Delimiter Description

+, -, *, / Addition, subtraction/negation, multiplication, division

% Attribute indicator

' Character string delimiter

. Component selector

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 (,) Expression or list delimiter

: Host variable indicator

, Item separator

" Quoted identifier delimiter

= Relational operator

@ Remote access indicator

; Statement terminator

:= Assignment operator

=> Association operator

|| Concatenation operator

** Exponentiation operator

<<, >> Label delimiter (begin and end)

/*, */ Multi-line comment delimiter (begin and end)

-- Single-line comment indicator

.. Range operator

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 <, >, <=, >= Relational operators

<>, '=, ~=, ^= Different versions of NOT EQUAL

The PL/SQL Comments

Program comments are explanatory statements that can be included in the PL/SQL code that you write
and helps anyone reading its source code. All programming languages allow some form of comments.
The PL/SQL supports single-line and multi-line comments. All characters available inside any comment
are ignored by the PL/SQL compiler. The PL/SQL single-line comments start with the delimiter --
(double hyphen) and multi-line comments are enclosed by /* and */.

DECLARE
-- variable declaration
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
/*
* PL/SQL executable statement(s)
*/
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL Program Units

A PL/SQL unit is any one of the following −

 PL/SQL block
 Function
 Package
 Package body
 Procedure
 Trigger
 Type
 Type body

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Data Types
we will discuss the Data Types in PL/SQL. The PL/SQL variables, constants and parameters must have a
valid data type, which specifies a storage format, constraints, and a valid range of values. We will focus
on the SCALAR and the LOB data types in this chapter. The other two data types will be covered in other
chapters.

S.No Category & Description

Scalar
1
Single values with no internal components, such as a NUMBER,
DATE, or BOOLEAN.

Large Object (LOB)

2
Pointers to large objects that are stored separately from other data items, such as
text, graphic images, video clips, and sound waveforms.

Composite
3
Data items that have internal components that can be accessed individually. For
example, collections and records.

4 Reference
Pointers to other data items.

PL/SQL Scalar Data Types and Subtypes

PL/SQL Scalar Data Types and Subtypes come under the following categories −

S.No Date Type & Description

1 Numeric
Numeric values on which arithmetic operations are performed.

2 Character
Alphanumeric values that represent single characters or strings of characters.

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 3 Boolean
Logical values on which logical operations are performed.

4 Datetime
Dates and times.

PL/SQL provides subtypes of data types. For example, the data type NUMBER has a
subtype called INTEGER. You can use the subtypes in your PL/SQL program to make
the data types compatible with data types in other programs while embedding the
PL/SQL code in another program, such as a Java program.

PL/SQL Numeric Data Types and Subtypes

Following table lists out the PL/SQL pre-defined numeric data types and their sub-
types −

S.No Data Type & Description

PLS_INTEGER
1
Signed integer in range -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647, represented in 32
bits

BINARY_INTEGER
2
Signed integer in range -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647, represented in 32
bits

3 BINARY_FLOAT
Single-precision IEEE 754-format floating-point number

4 BINARY_DOUBLE
Double-precision IEEE 754-format floating-point number

NUMBER(prec, scale)
5
Fixed-point or floating-point number with absolute value in range 1E-130 to (but not
including) 1.0E126. A NUMBER variable can also represent 0

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 6 DEC(prec, scale)
ANSI specific fixed-point type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

7 DECIMAL(prec, scale)
IBM specific fixed-point type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

8 NUMERIC(pre, secale)
Floating type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

DOUBLE PRECISION
9
ANSI specific floating-point type with maximum precision of 126 binary digits
(approximately 38 decimal digits)

FLOAT
10
ANSI and IBM specific floating-point type with maximum precision of 126 binary
digits (approximately 38 decimal digits)

11 INT
ANSI specific integer type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

12 INTEGER
ANSI and IBM specific integer type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

13 SMALLINT
ANSI and IBM specific integer type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

REAL
14
Floating-point type with maximum precision of 63 binary digits (approximately 18
decimal digits)

Following is a valid declaration −

DECLARE
num1 INTEGER;
num2 REAL;
num3 DOUBLE PRECISION;
BEGIN

By Anand Harsha 125

 null;
END;
/
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

PL/SQL Character Data Types and Subtypes

Following is the detail of PL/SQL pre-defined character data types and their sub-types
−

S.No Data Type & Description

1 CHAR
Fixed-length character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

2 VARCHAR2
Variable-length character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

RAW
3
Variable-length binary or byte string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes, not
interpreted by PL/SQL

4 NCHAR
Fixed-length national character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

5 NVARCHAR2
Variable-length national character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

6 LONG
Variable-length character string with maximum size of 32,760 bytes

LONG RAW
7
Variable-length binary or byte string with maximum size of 32,760 bytes, not
interpreted by PL/SQL

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 8 ROWID
Physical row identifier, the address of a row in an ordinary table

9 UROWID
Universal row identifier (physical, logical, or foreign row identifier)

PL/SQL Boolean Data Types

The BOOLEAN data type stores logical values that are used in logical operations. The
logical values are the Boolean values TRUE and FALSE and the value NULL.
However, SQL has no data type equivalent to BOOLEAN. Therefore, Boolean values
cannot be used in −

 SQL statements
 Built-in SQL functions (such as TO_CHAR)
 PL/SQL functions invoked from SQL statements

PL/SQL Datetime and Interval Types

The DATE datatype is used to store fixed-length datetimes, which include the time of day in seconds
since midnight. Valid dates range from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31, 9999 AD.
The default date format is set by the Oracle initialization parameter NLS_DATE_FORMAT. For example,
the default might be 'DD-MON-YY', which includes a two-digit number for the day of the month, an
abbreviation of the month name, and the last two digits of the year. For example, 01-OCT-12.
Each DATE includes the century, year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. The following table
shows the valid values for each field −

Field Name Valid Datetime Values Valid Interval Values

YEAR -4712 to 9999 (excluding year 0) Any nonzero integer

MONTH 01 to 12 0 to 11

01 to 31 (limited by the values of MONTH

DAY and YEAR, according to the rules of the Any nonzero integer
calendar for the locale)

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HOUR 00 to 23 0 to 23

MINUTE 00 to 59 0 to 59

00 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is the precision of 0 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is

SECOND time fractional seconds the precision of interval
fractional seconds

-12 to 14 (range accommodates daylight

TIMEZONE_HOUR Not applicable
savings time changes)

TIMEZONE_MINUTE 00 to 59 Not applicable

Found in the dynamic performance view

TIMEZONE_REGION Not applicable
V$TIMEZONE_NAMES

Found in the dynamic performance view

TIMEZONE_ABBR Not applicable
V$TIMEZONE_NAMES

PL/SQL Large Object (LOB) Data Types

Large Object (LOB) data types refer to large data items such as text, graphic images, video clips, and
sound waveforms. LOB data types allow efficient, random, piecewise access to this data. Following are
the predefined PL/SQL LOB data types −

Data Type Description Size

Used to store large binary objects in System-dependent. Cannot

BFILE
operating system files outside the database. exceed 4 gigabytes (GB).

Used to store large binary objects in the 8 to 128 terabytes (TB)

BLOB
database.

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 Used to store large blocks of character data in 8 to 128 TB
CLOB
the database.

Used to store large blocks of NCHAR data in

NCLOB
the database.

NULLs in PL/SQL
PL/SQL NULL values represent missing or unknown data and they are not an integer, a character, or
any other specific data type. Note that NULL is not the same as an empty data string or the null
character value '\0'. A null can be assigned but it cannot be equated with anything, including itself.

PL/SQL Variables
we will discuss Variables in Pl/SQL. A variable is nothing but a name given to a storage area that our
programs can manipulate. Each variable in PL/SQL has a specific data type, which determines the size
and the layout of the variable's memory; the range of values that can be stored within that memory
and the set of operations that can be applied to the variable.
The name of a PL/SQL variable consists of a letter optionally followed by more letters, numerals, dollar
signs, underscores, and number signs and should not exceed 30 characters. By default, variable names
are not case-sensitive. You cannot use a reserved PL/SQL keyword as a variable name.
PL/SQL programming language allows to define various types of variables, such as date time data types,
records, collections, etc. which we will cover in subsequent chapters. For this chapter, let us study only
basic variable types.

Variable Declaration in PL/SQL

PL/SQL variables must be declared in the declaration section or in a package as a global variable. When
you declare a variable, PL/SQL allocates memory for the variable's value and the storage location is
identified by the variable name.
The syntax for declaring a variable is −
variable_name [CONSTANT] datatype [NOT NULL] [:= | DEFAULT initial_value]
Where, variable_name is a valid identifier in PL/SQL, datatype must be a valid PL/SQL data type or any
user defined data type which we already have discussed in the last chapter. Some valid variable
declarations along with their definition are shown below −
sales number(10, 2);
pi CONSTANT double precision := 3.1415;
name varchar2(25);
address varchar2(100);

By Anand Harsha 129

When you provide a size, scale or precision limit with the data type, it is called a constrained
declaration. Constrained declarations require less memory than unconstrained declarations. For
example −
sales number(10, 2);
name varchar2(25);
address varchar2(100);

Initializing Variables in PL/SQL

Whenever you declare a variable, PL/SQL assigns it a default value of NULL. If you want to initialize a
variable with a value other than the NULL value, you can do so during the declaration, using either of
the following −
 The DEFAULT keyword
 The assignment operator
For example −
counter binary_integer := 0;
greetings varchar2(20) DEFAULT 'Have a Good Day';
You can also specify that a variable should not have a NULL value using the NOT NULL constraint. If you
use the NOT NULL constraint, you must explicitly assign an initial value for that variable.
It is a good programming practice to initialize variables properly otherwise, sometimes programs would
produce unexpected results. Try the following example which makes use of various types of variables −

DECLARE
a integer := 10;
b integer := 20;
c integer;
f real;
BEGIN
c := a + b;
dbms_output.put_line('Value of c: ' || c);
f := 70.0/3.0;
dbms_output.put_line('Value of f: ' || f);
END;
/
When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −
Value of c: 30
Value of f: 23.333333333333333333

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 130

Variable Scope in PL/SQL
PL/SQL allows the nesting of blocks, i.e., each program block may contain another inner block. If a
variable is declared within an inner block, it is not accessible to the outer block. However, if a variable is
declared and accessible to an outer block, it is also accessible to all nested inner blocks. There are two
types of variable scope −
 Local variables − Variables declared in an inner block and not accessible to outer blocks.
 Global variables − Variables declared in the outermost block or a package.
Following example shows the usage of Local and Global variables in its simple form −

DECLARE
-- Global variables
num1 number := 95;
num2 number := 85;
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Outer Variable num1: ' || num1);
dbms_output.put_line('Outer Variable num2: ' || num2);
DECLARE
-- Local variables
num1 number := 195;
num2 number := 185;
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Inner Variable num1: ' || num1);
dbms_output.put_line('Inner Variable num2: ' || num2);
END;
END;
/
When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −
Outer Variable num1: 95
Outer Variable num2: 85
Inner Variable num1: 195
Inner Variable num2: 185

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Assigning SQL Query Results to PL/SQL Variables

You can use the SELECT INTO statement of SQL to assign values to PL/SQL variables. For each item in
the SELECT list, there must be a corresponding, type-compatible variable in the INTO list. The following
example illustrates the concept. Let us create a table named CUSTOMERS −
(For SQL statements, please refer to the SQL tutorial)

CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS(

ID INT NOT NULL,
NAME VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL,

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 AGE INT NOT NULL,
ADDRESS CHAR (25),
SALARY DECIMAL (18, 2),
PRIMARY KEY (ID)
);

Table Created

Let us now insert some values in the table −

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (1, 'Ramesh', 32, 'Ahmedabad', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (2, 'Khilan', 25, 'Delhi', 1500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (3, 'kaushik', 23, 'Kota', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (4, 'Chaitali', 25, 'Mumbai', 6500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (5, 'Hardik', 27, 'Bhopal', 8500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (6, 'Komal', 22, 'MP', 4500.00 );

The following program assigns values from the above table to PL/SQL variables using the SELECT INTO
clause of SQL −

DECLARE
c_id customers.id%type := 1;
c_name customers.name%type;
c_addr customers.address%type;
c_sal customers.salary%type;
BEGIN
SELECT name, address, salary INTO c_name, c_addr, c_sal
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
dbms_output.put_line
('Customer ' ||c_name || ' from ' || c_addr || ' earns ' || c_sal);
END;
/

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −

Customer Ramesh from Ahmedabad earns 2000

PL/SQL procedure completed successfully

By Anand Harsha 132

PL/SQL Constants and Literals

we will discuss constants and literals in PL/SQL. A constant holds a value that once declared, does not
change in the program. A constant declaration specifies its name, data type, and value, and allocates
storage for it. The declaration can also impose the NOT NULL constraint.

Declaring a Constant
A constant is declared using the CONSTANT keyword. It requires an initial value and does not allow that
value to be changed. For example −

PI CONSTANT NUMBER := 3.141592654;

DECLARE
-- constant declaration
pi constant number := 3.141592654;
-- other declarations
radius number(5,2);
dia number(5,2);
circumference number(7, 2);
area number (10, 2);
BEGIN
-- processing
radius := 9.5;
dia := radius * 2;
circumference := 2.0 * pi * radius;
area := pi * radius * radius;
-- output
dbms_output.put_line('Radius: ' || radius);
dbms_output.put_line('Diameter: ' || dia);
dbms_output.put_line('Circumference: ' || circumference);
dbms_output.put_line('Area: ' || area);
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Radius: 9.5
Diameter: 19
Circumference: 59.69
Area: 283.53

Pl/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 133

The PL/SQL Literals
A literal is an explicit numeric, character, string, or Boolean value not represented by an identifier. For
example, TRUE, 786, NULL, 'tutorialspoint' are all literals of type Boolean, number, or string. PL/SQL,
literals are case-sensitive. PL/SQL supports the following kinds of literals −

 Numeric Literals
 Character Literals
 String Literals
 BOOLEAN Literals
 Date and Time Literals
The following table provides examples from all these categories of literal values.

S.No Literal Type & Example

Numeric Literals

1 050 78 -14 0 +32767

6.6667 0.0 -12.0 3.14159 +7800.00
6E5 1.0E-8 3.14159e0 -1E38 -9.5e-3

2 Character Literals
'A' '%' '9' ' ' 'z' '('

String Literals

3 'Hello, world!'
'Tutorials Point'
'19-NOV-12'

4 BOOLEAN Literals
TRUE, FALSE, and NULL.

Date and Time Literals

5 DATE '1978-12-25';
TIMESTAMP '2012-10-29 12:01:01';

By Anand Harsha 134

To embed single quotes within a string literal, place two single quotes next to each other as shown in
the following program −

DECLARE
message varchar2(30):= 'That''s tutorialspoint.com!';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
That's tutorialspoint.com!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL Operators
we will discuss operators in PL/SQL. An operator is a symbol that tells the compiler to perform specific
mathematical or logical manipulation. PL/SQL language is rich in built-in operators and provides the
following types of operators −

 Arithmetic operators
 Relational operators
 Comparison operators
 Logical operators
 String operators
Here, we will understand the arithmetic, relational, comparison and logical operators one by one. The
String operators will be discussed in a later chapter − PL/SQL - Strings.

Arithmetic Operators
Following table shows all the arithmetic operators supported by PL/SQL. Let us assume variable
A holds 10 and variable B holds 5, then −
Show Examples

Operator Description Example

+ Adds two operands A + B will give 15

- Subtracts second operand from the first A - B will give 5

By Anand Harsha 135

* Multiplies both operands A * B will give 50

/ Divides numerator by de-numerator A / B will give 2

** Exponentiation operator, raises one operand to the power of A ** B will give

other 100000

Relational Operators
Relational operators compare two expressions or values and return a Boolean result. Following table
shows all the relational operators supported by PL/SQL. Let us assume variable A holds 10 and variable
B holds 20, then −
Show Examples

Operator Description Example

Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not, if yes then (A = B) is not
=
condition becomes true. true.

!=
Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not, if values are (A != B) is
<> not equal then condition becomes true. true.
~=

Checks if the value of left operand is greater than the value of right (A > B) is not
>
operand, if yes then condition becomes true. true.

Checks if the value of left operand is less than the value of right (A < B) is true.
<
operand, if yes then condition becomes true.

Checks if the value of left operand is greater than or equal to the (A >= B) is not
>=
value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true. true.

<= Checks if the value of left operand is less than or equal to the value (A <= B) is

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 of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true. true

Comparison Operators
Comparison operators are used for comparing one expression to another. The result is always
either TRUE, FALSE or NULL.
Show Examples

Operator Description Example

The LIKE operator compares a character, If 'Zara Ali' like 'Z% A_i' returns a
string, or CLOB value to a pattern and returns Boolean true, whereas, 'Nuha Ali'
LIKE
TRUE if the value matches the pattern and like 'Z% A_i' returns a Boolean
FALSE if it does not. false.

If x = 10 then, x between 5 and 20

The BETWEEN operator tests whether a value
returns true, x between 5 and 10
BETWEEN lies in a specified range. x BETWEEN a AND b
returns true, but x between 11 and
means that x >= a and x <= b.
20 returns false.

The IN operator tests set membership. x IN If x = 'm' then, x in ('a', 'b', 'c')
IN (set) means that x is equal to any member of returns Boolean false but x in ('m',
set. 'n', 'o') returns Boolean true.

The IS NULL operator returns the BOOLEAN

value TRUE if its operand is NULL or FALSE if it If x = 'm', then 'x is null' returns
IS NULL
is not NULL. Comparisons involving NULL Boolean false.
values always yield NULL.

Logical Operators
Following table shows the Logical operators supported by PL/SQL. All these operators work on Boolean
operands and produce Boolean results. Let us assume variable A holds true and variable B holds false,
then −
Show Examples

By Anand Harsha 137

Operator Description Examples

Called the logical AND operator. If both the operands are true then (A and B) is
and
condition becomes true. false.

Called the logical OR Operator. If any of the two operands is true (A or B) is

or
then condition becomes true. true.

Called the logical NOT Operator. Used to reverse the logical state of not (A and B)
not its operand. If a condition is true then Logical NOT operator will is true.
make it false.

PL/SQL Operator Precedence

Operator precedence determines the grouping of terms in an expression. This affects how an
expression is evaluated. Certain operators have higher precedence than others; for example, the
multiplication operator has higher precedence than the addition operator.
For example, x = 7 + 3 * 2; here, x is assigned 13, not 20 because operator * has higher precedence
than +, so it first gets multiplied with 3*2 and then adds into 7.
Here, operators with the highest precedence appear at the top of the table, those with the lowest
appear at the bottom. Within an expression, higher precedence operators will be evaluated first.
The precedence of operators goes as follows: =, <, >, <=, >=, <>, !=, ~=, ^=, IS NULL, LIKE, BETWEEN, IN.
Show Examples

Operator Operation

** exponentiation

+, - identity, negation

*, / multiplication, division

+, -, || addition, subtraction, concatenation

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comparison

NOT logical negation

AND conjunction

OR inclusion

PL/SQL conditions

we will discuss conditions in PL/SQL. Decision-making structures require that the programmer specify
one or more conditions to be evaluated or tested by the program, along with a statement or
statements to be executed if the condition is determined to be true, and optionally, other statements
to be executed if the condition is determined to be false.
Following is the general form of a typical conditional (i.e., decision making) structure found in most of
the programming languages –

By Anand Harsha 139

PL/SQL programming language provides following types of decision-making statements. Click the
following links to check their detail.

S.No Statement & Description

IF - THEN statement

1
The IF statement associates a condition with a sequence of statements enclosed by the
keywords THEN and END IF. If the condition is true, the statements get executed and if
the condition is false or NULL then the IF statement does nothing.

IF-THEN-ELSE statement

2 IF statement adds the keyword ELSE followed by an alternative sequence of statement.

If the condition is false or NULL, then only the alternative sequence of statements get
executed. It ensures that either of the sequence of statements is executed.

IF-THEN-ELSIF statement
3
It allows you to choose between several alternatives.

Case statement

Like the IF statement, the CASE statement selects one sequence of statements to
4 execute.
However, to select the sequence, the CASE statement uses a selector rather than
multiple Boolean expressions. A selector is an expression whose value is used to select
one of several alternatives.

Searched CASE statement

5
The searched CASE statement has no selector, and it's WHEN clauses contain search
conditions that yield Boolean values.

nested IF-THEN-ELSE
6
You can use one IF-THEN or IF-THEN-ELSIF statement inside another IF-THEN or IF-THEN-
ELSIF statement(s).

By Anand Harsha 140

PL/SQL Loops
we will discuss Loops in PL/SQL. There may be a situation when you need to execute a block of code
several number of times. In general, statements are executed sequentially: The first statement in a
function is executed first, followed by the second, and so on.
Programming languages provide various control structures that allow for more complicated execution
paths.
A loop statement allows us to execute a statement or group of statements multiple times and following
is the general form of a loop statement in most of the programming languages −

PL/SQL provides the following types of loop to handle the looping requirements. Click the following
links to check their detail.

S.No Loop Type & Description

PL/SQL Basic LOOP

1
In this loop structure, sequence of statements is enclosed between the LOOP and the
END LOOP statements. At each iteration, the sequence of statements is executed and
then control resumes at the top of the loop.

PL/SQL WHILE LOOP

2
Repeats a statement or group of statements while a given condition is true. It tests the

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 condition before executing the loop body.

PL/SQL FOR LOOP

3
Execute a sequence of statements multiple times and abbreviates the code that
manages the loop variable.

Nested loops in PL/SQL

4
You can use one or more loop inside any another basic loop, while, or for loop.

Labeling a PL/SQL Loop

PL/SQL loops can be labeled. The label should be enclosed by double angle brackets (<< and >>) and
appear at the beginning of the LOOP statement. The label name can also appear at the end of the LOOP
statement. You may use the label in the EXIT statement to exit from the loop.
The following program illustrates the concept −

DECLARE
i number(1);
j number(1);
BEGIN
<< outer_loop >>
FOR i IN 1..3 LOOP
<< inner_loop >>
FOR j IN 1..3 LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('i is: '|| i || ' and j is: ' || j);
END loop inner_loop;
END loop outer_loop;
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
i is: 1 and j is: 1
i is: 1 and j is: 2
i is: 1 and j is: 3
i is: 2 and j is: 1
i is: 2 and j is: 2
i is: 2 and j is: 3
i is: 3 and j is: 1
i is: 3 and j is: 2
i is: 3 and j is: 3

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 142

The Loop Control Statements
Loop control statements change execution from its normal sequence. When execution leaves a scope,
all automatic objects that were created in that scope are destroyed.
PL/SQL supports the following control statements. Labeling loops also help in taking the control outside
a loop. Click the following links to check their details.

S.No Control Statement & Description

EXIT statement
1
The Exit statement completes the loop and control passes to the statement immediately
after the END LOOP.

CONTINUE statement
2
Causes the loop to skip the remainder of its body and immediately retest its condition
prior to reiterating.

GOTO statement
3
Transfers control to the labeled statement. Though it is not advised to use the GOTO
statement in your program.

PL/SQL Strings
The string in PL/SQL is actually a sequence of characters with an optional size specification. The
characters could be numeric, letters, blank, special characters or a combination of all. PL/SQL offers
three kinds of strings −
 Fixed-length strings − In such strings, programmers specify the length while declaring the
string. The string is right-padded with spaces to the length so specified.
 Variable-length strings − In such strings, a maximum length up to 32,767, for the string is
specified and no padding takes place.
 Character large objects (CLOBs) − These are variable-length strings that can be up to 128
terabytes.
PL/SQL strings could be either variables or literals. A string literal is enclosed within quotation marks.
For example,
'This is a string literal.' Or 'hello world'

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To include a single quote inside a string literal, you need to type two single quotes next to one another.
For example,
'this isn''t what it looks like'

Declaring String Variables

Oracle database provides numerous string datatypes, such as CHAR, NCHAR, VARCHAR2, NVARCHAR2,
CLOB, and NCLOB. The datatypes prefixed with an 'N' are 'national character set' datatypes, that store
Unicode character data.
If you need to declare a variable-length string, you must provide the maximum length of that string. For
example, the VARCHAR2 data type. The following example illustrates declaring and using some string
variables −

DECLARE
name varchar2(20);
company varchar2(30);
introduction clob;
choice char(1);
BEGIN
name := 'John Smith';
company := 'Infotech';
introduction := ' Hello! I''m John Smith from Infotech.';
choice := 'y';
IF choice = 'y' THEN
dbms_output.put_line(name);
dbms_output.put_line(company);
dbms_output.put_line(introduction);
END IF;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
John Smith
Infotech
Hello! I'm John Smith from Infotech.

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

To declare a fixed-length string, use the CHAR datatype. Here you do not have to specify a maximum
length for a fixed-length variable. If you leave off the length constraint, Oracle Database automatically
uses a maximum length required. The following two declarations are identical −
red_flag CHAR(1) := 'Y';
red_flag CHAR := 'Y';

By Anand Harsha 144

PL/SQL String Functions and Operators
PL/SQL offers the concatenation operator (||) for joining two strings. The following table provides the
string functions provided by PL/SQL −

S.No Function & Purpose

1 ASCII(x);
Returns the ASCII value of the character x.

2 CHR(x);
Returns the character with the ASCII value of x.

3 CONCAT(x, y);
Concatenates the strings x and y and returns the appended string.

4 INITCAP(x);
Converts the initial letter of each word in x to uppercase and returns that string.

5 INSTR(x, find_string [, start] [, occurrence]);

Searches for find_string in x and returns the position at which it occurs.

6 INSTRB(x);
Returns the location of a string within another string, but returns the value in bytes.

7 LENGTH(x);
Returns the number of characters in x.

8 LENGTHB(x);
Returns the length of a character string in bytes for single byte character set.

9 LOWER(x);
Converts the letters in x to lowercase and returns that string.

By Anand Harsha 145

 LPAD(x, width [, pad_string]) ;
10
Pads x with spaces to the left, to bring the total length of the string up to width
characters.

11 LTRIM(x [, trim_string]);
Trims characters from the left of x.

12 NANVL(x, value);
Returns value if x matches the NaN special value (not a number), otherwise x is returned.

NLS_INITCAP(x);
13
Same as the INITCAP function except that it can use a different sort method as specified
by NLSSORT.

NLS_LOWER(x) ;
14
Same as the LOWER function except that it can use a different sort method as specified
by NLSSORT.

NLS_UPPER(x);
15
Same as the UPPER function except that it can use a different sort method as specified
by NLSSORT.

NLSSORT(x);
16
Changes the method of sorting the characters. Must be specified before any NLS
function; otherwise, the default sort will be used.

17 NVL(x, value);
Returns value if x is null; otherwise, x is returned.

18 NVL2(x, value1, value2);

Returns value1 if x is not null; if x is null, value2 is returned.

REPLACE(x, search_string, replace_string);

By Anand Harsha 146

19 Searches x for search_string and replaces it with replace_string.

20 RPAD(x, width [, pad_string]);

Pads x to the right.

21 RTRIM(x [, trim_string]);
Trims x from the right.

22 SOUNDEX(x) ;
Returns a string containing the phonetic representation of x.

SUBSTR(x, start [, length]);

23 Returns a substring of x that begins at the position specified by start. An optional length
for the substring may be supplied.

SUBSTRB(x);
24
Same as SUBSTR except that the parameters are expressed in bytes instead of characters
for the single-byte character systems.

25 TRIM([trim_char FROM) x);

Trims characters from the left and right of x.

26 UPPER(x);
Converts the letters in x to uppercase and returns that string.

Let us now work out on a few examples to understand the concept −

Example 1
DECLARE
greetings varchar2(11) := 'hello world';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(UPPER(greetings));

By Anand Harsha 147

 dbms_output.put_line(LOWER(greetings));

dbms_output.put_line(INITCAP(greetings));

/* retrieve the first character in the string */

dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 1, 1));

/* retrieve the last character in the string */

dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, -1, 1));

/* retrieve five characters,

starting from the seventh position. */
dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 7, 5));

/* retrieve the remainder of the string,

starting from the second position. */
dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 2));

/* find the location of the first "e" */

dbms_output.put_line ( INSTR (greetings, 'e'));
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
HELLO WORLD
hello world
Hello World
h
d
World
ello World
2

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example 2
DECLARE
greetings varchar2(30) := '......Hello World.....';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(RTRIM(greetings,'.'));
dbms_output.put_line(LTRIM(greetings, '.'));
dbms_output.put_line(TRIM( '.' from greetings));
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
......Hello World

By Anand Harsha 148

Hello World.....
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL Arrays
we will discuss arrays in PL/SQL. The PL/SQL programming language provides a data structure called
the VARRAY, which can store a fixed-size sequential collection of elements of the same type. A varray is
used to store an ordered collection of data, however it is often better to think of an array as a
collection of variables of the same type.
All varrays consist of contiguous memory locations. The lowest address corresponds to the first
element and the highest address to the last element.

An array is a part of collection type data and it stands for variable-size arrays. We will study other
collection types in a later chapter 'PL/SQL Collections'.
Each element in a varray has an index associated with it. It also has a maximum size that can be
changed dynamically.

Creating a Varray Type

A varray type is created with the CREATE TYPE statement. You must specify the maximum size and the
type of elements stored in the varray.
The basic syntax for creating a VARRAY type at the schema level is −
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE varray_type_name IS VARRAY(n) of <element_type>
Where,

 varray_type_name is a valid attribute name,

 n is the number of elements (maximum) in the varray,
 element_type is the data type of the elements of the array.
Maximum size of a varray can be changed using the ALTER TYPE statement.
For example,

CREATE Or REPLACE TYPE namearray AS VARRAY(3) OF VARCHAR2(10);

/

By Anand Harsha 149

Type created.

The basic syntax for creating a VARRAY type within a PL/SQL block is −
TYPE varray_type_name IS VARRAY(n) of <element_type>
For example −

TYPE namearray IS VARRAY(5) OF VARCHAR2(10);

Type grades IS VARRAY(5) OF INTEGER;

Let us now work out on a few examples to understand the concept −

Example 1
The following program illustrates the use of varrays −

DECLARE
type namesarray IS VARRAY(5) OF VARCHAR2(10);
type grades IS VARRAY(5) OF INTEGER;
names namesarray;
marks grades;
total integer;
BEGIN
names := namesarray('Kavita', 'Pritam', 'Ayan', 'Rishav', 'Aziz');
marks:= grades(98, 97, 78, 87, 92);
total := names.count;
dbms_output.put_line('Total '|| total || ' Students');
FOR i in 1 .. total LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('Student: ' || names(i) || '
Marks: ' || marks(i));
END LOOP;
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Total 5 Students
Student: Kavita Marks: 98
Student: Pritam Marks: 97
Student: Ayan Marks: 78
Student: Rishav Marks: 87
Student: Aziz Marks: 92

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Please note −
 In Oracle environment, the starting index for varrays is always 1.
 You can initialize the varray elements using the constructor method of the varray type, which
has the same name as the varray.

By Anand Harsha 150

  Varrays are one-dimensional arrays.
 A varray is automatically NULL when it is declared and must be initialized before its elements
can be referenced.

Example 2
Elements of a varray could also be a %ROWTYPE of any database table or %TYPE of any database table
field. The following example illustrates the concept.
We will use the CUSTOMERS table stored in our database as −
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
Following example makes the use of cursor, which you will study in detail in a separate chapter.

DECLARE
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT name FROM customers;
type c_list is varray (6) of customers.name%type;
name_list c_list := c_list();
counter integer :=0;
BEGIN
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter + 1;
name_list.extend;
name_list(counter) := n.name;
dbms_output.put_line('Customer('||counter ||'):'||name_list(counter));
END LOOP;
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal

By Anand Harsha 151

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL PROCEDURES
we will discuss Procedures in PL/SQL. A subprogram is a program unit/module that performs a
particular task. These subprograms are combined to form larger programs. This is basically called the
'Modular design'. A subprogram can be invoked by another subprogram or program which is called
the calling program.
A subprogram can be created −

 At the schema level

 Inside a package
 Inside a PL/SQL block
At the schema level, subprogram is a standalone subprogram. It is created with the CREATE
PROCEDURE or the CREATE FUNCTION statement. It is stored in the database and can be deleted with
the DROP PROCEDURE or DROP FUNCTION statement.
A subprogram created inside a package is a packaged subprogram. It is stored in the database and can
be deleted only when the package is deleted with the DROP PACKAGE statement. We will discuss
packages in the chapter 'PL/SQL - Packages'.
PL/SQL subprograms are named PL/SQL blocks that can be invoked with a set of parameters. PL/SQL
provides two kinds of subprograms −
 Functions − These subprograms return a single value; mainly used to compute and return a
value.
 Procedures − These subprograms do not return a value directly; mainly used to perform an
action.
This chapter is going to cover important aspects of a PL/SQL procedure. We will discuss PL/SQL
function in the next chapter.

Parts of a PL/SQL Subprogram

Each PL/SQL subprogram has a name, and may also have a parameter list. Like anonymous PL/SQL
blocks, the named blocks will also have the following three parts −

S.No Parts & Description

1 Declarative Part
It is an optional part. However, the declarative part for a subprogram does not start with

By Anand Harsha 152

 the DECLARE keyword. It contains declarations of types, cursors, constants, variables,
exceptions, and nested subprograms. These items are local to the subprogram and cease
to exist when the subprogram completes execution.

2 Executable Part
This is a mandatory part and contains statements that perform the designated action.

3 Exception-handling
This is again an optional part. It contains the code that handles run-time errors.

Creating a Procedure
A procedure is created with the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement. The simplified syntax for
the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement is as follows −

CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE procedure_name

[(parameter_name [IN | OUT | IN OUT] type [, ...])]
{IS | AS}
BEGIN
< procedure_body >
END procedure_name;

Where,
 procedure-name specifies the name of the procedure.
 [OR REPLACE] option allows the modification of an existing procedure.
 The optional parameter list contains name, mode and types of the parameters. IN represents
the value that will be passed from outside and OUT represents the parameter that will be used
to return a value outside of the procedure.
 procedure-body contains the executable part.
 The AS keyword is used instead of the IS keyword for creating a standalone procedure.

Example
The following example creates a simple procedure that displays the string 'Hello World!' on the screen
when executed.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE greetings

AS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Hello World!');
END;
/

By Anand Harsha 153

When the above code is executed using the SQL prompt, it will produce the following result −
Procedure created.

Executing a Standalone Procedure

A standalone procedure can be called in two ways −
 Using the EXECUTE keyword
 Calling the name of the procedure from a PL/SQL block
The above procedure named 'greetings' can be called with the EXECUTE keyword as −
EXECUTE greetings;
The above call will display −
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The procedure can also be called from another PL/SQL block −

BEGIN
greetings;
END;
/
The above call will display −
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Deleting a Standalone Procedure

A standalone procedure is deleted with the DROP PROCEDURE statement. Syntax for deleting a
procedure is −
DROP PROCEDURE procedure-name;
You can drop the greetings procedure by using the following statement −
DROP PROCEDURE greetings;

Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms

The following table lists out the parameter modes in PL/SQL subprograms −

S.No Parameter Mode & Description

By Anand Harsha 154

 IN
An IN parameter lets you pass a value to the subprogram. It is a read-only parameter.
1 Inside the subprogram, an IN parameter acts like a constant. It cannot be assigned a
value. You can pass a constant, literal, initialized variable, or expression as an IN
parameter. You can also initialize it to a default value; however, in that case, it is omitted
from the subprogram call. It is the default mode of parameter passing. Parameters are
passed by reference.

OUT
2 An OUT parameter returns a value to the calling program. Inside the subprogram, an
OUT parameter acts like a variable. You can change its value and reference the value
after assigning it. The actual parameter must be variable and it is passed by value.

IN OUT
An IN OUT parameter passes an initial value to a subprogram and returns an updated
3 value to the caller. It can be assigned a value and the value can be read.
The actual parameter corresponding to an IN OUT formal parameter must be a variable,
not a constant or an expression. Formal parameter must be assigned a value. Actual
parameter is passed by value.

IN & OUT Mode Example 1

This program finds the minimum of two values. Here, the procedure takes two numbers using the IN
mode and returns their minimum using the OUT parameters.

DECLARE
a number;
b number;
c number;
PROCEDURE findMin(x IN number, y IN number, z OUT number) IS
BEGIN
IF x < y THEN
z:= x;
ELSE
z:= y;
END IF;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
b:= 45;
findMin(a, b, c);
dbms_output.put_line(' Minimum of (23, 45) : ' || c);
END;

By Anand Harsha 155

/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Minimum of (23, 45) : 23

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

IN & OUT Mode Example 2

This procedure computes the square of value of a passed value. This example shows how we can use
the same parameter to accept a value and then return another result.

DECLARE
a number;
PROCEDURE squareNum(x IN OUT number) IS
BEGIN
x := x * x;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
squareNum(a);
dbms_output.put_line(' Square of (23): ' || a);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Square of (23): 529

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Methods for Passing Parameters

Actual parameters can be passed in three ways −

 Positional notation
 Named notation
 Mixed notation

Positional Notation
In positional notation, you can call the procedure as −
findMin(a, b, c, d);
In positional notation, the first actual parameter is substituted for the first formal parameter; the
second actual parameter is substituted for the second formal parameter, and so on. So, a is substituted
for x, b is substituted for y, c is substituted for z and d is substituted for m.

By Anand Harsha 156

Named Notation
In named notation, the actual parameter is associated with the formal parameter using the arrow
symbol ( => ). The procedure call will be like the following −
findMin(x => a, y => b, z => c, m => d);

Mixed Notation
In mixed notation, you can mix both notations in procedure call; however, the positional notation
should precede the named notation.
The following call is legal −
findMin(a, b, c, m => d);
However, this is not legal:
findMin(x => a, b, c, d);

PL/SQL FUNCTIONS
we will discuss the functions in PL/SQL. A function is same as a procedure except that it returns a value.
Therefore, all the discussions of the previous chapter are true for functions too.

Creating a Function
A standalone function is created using the CREATE FUNCTION statement. The simplified syntax for
the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement is as follows −
CREATE [OR REPLACE] FUNCTION function_name
[(parameter_name [IN | OUT | IN OUT] type [, ...])]
RETURN return_datatype
{IS | AS}
BEGIN
< function_body >
END [function_name];
Where,
 function-name specifies the name of the function.
 [OR REPLACE] option allows the modification of an existing function.
 The optional parameter list contains name, mode and types of the parameters. IN represents
the value that will be passed from outside and OUT represents the parameter that will be used
to return a value outside of the procedure.
 The function must contain a return statement.
 The RETURN clause specifies the data type you are going to return from the function.
 function-body contains the executable part.

By Anand Harsha 157

  The AS keyword is used instead of the IS keyword for creating a standalone function.

Example
The following example illustrates how to create and call a standalone function. This function returns
the total number of CUSTOMERS in the customers table.
We will use the CUSTOMERS table, which we had created in the PL/SQL Variables chapter −
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION totalCustomers
RETURN number IS
total number(2) := 0;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*) into total
FROM customers;

RETURN total;
END;
/

When the above code is executed using the SQL prompt, it will produce the following result −
Function created.

Calling a Function
While creating a function, you give a definition of what the function has to do. To use a function, you
will have to call that function to perform the defined task. When a program calls a function, the
program control is transferred to the called function.
A called function performs the defined task and when its return statement is executed or when the last
end statement is reached, it returns the program control back to the main program.
To call a function, you simply need to pass the required parameters along with the function name and if
the function returns a value, then you can store the returned value. Following program calls the
function totalCustomers from an anonymous block –

By Anand Harsha 158

DECLARE
c number(2);
BEGIN
c := totalCustomers();
dbms_output.put_line('Total no. of Customers: ' || c);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Total no. of Customers: 6

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example
The following example demonstrates Declaring, Defining, and Invoking a Simple PL/SQL Function that
computes and returns the maximum of two values.

DECLARE
a number;
b number;
c number;
FUNCTION findMax(x IN number, y IN number)
RETURN number
IS
z number;
BEGIN
IF x > y THEN
z:= x;
ELSE
Z:= y;
END IF;
RETURN z;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
b:= 45;
c := findMax(a, b);
dbms_output.put_line(' Maximum of (23,45): ' || c);
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Maximum of (23,45): 45

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 159

PL/SQL Recursive Functions
We have seen that a program or subprogram may call another subprogram. When a subprogram calls
itself, it is referred to as a recursive call and the process is known as recursion.
To illustrate the concept, let us calculate the factorial of a number. Factorial of a number n is defined as
−
n! = n*(n-1)!
= n*(n-1)*(n-2)!
...
= n*(n-1)*(n-2)*(n-3)... 1
The following program calculates the factorial of a given number by calling itself recursively −

DECLARE
num number;
factorial number;

FUNCTION fact(x number)

RETURN number
IS
f number;
BEGIN
IF x=0 THEN
f := 1;
ELSE
f := x * fact(x-1);
END IF;
RETURN f;
END;

BEGIN
num:= 6;
factorial := fact(num);
dbms_output.put_line(' Factorial '|| num || ' is ' || factorial);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Factorial 6 is 720

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 160

PL/SQL Cursors
we will discuss the cursors in PL/SQL. Oracle creates a memory area, known as the context area, for
processing an SQL statement, which contains all the information needed for processing the statement;
for example, the number of rows processed, etc.
A cursor is a pointer to this context area. PL/SQL controls the context area through a cursor. A cursor
holds the rows (one or more) returned by a SQL statement. The set of rows the cursor holds is referred
to as the active set.
You can name a cursor so that it could be referred to in a program to fetch and process the rows
returned by the SQL statement, one at a time. There are two types of cursors −

 Implicit cursors
 Explicit cursors

Implicit Cursors
Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle whenever an SQL statement is executed, when
there is no explicit cursor for the statement. Programmers cannot control the implicit cursors and the
information in it.
Whenever a DML statement (INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE) is issued, an implicit cursor is associated
with this statement. For INSERT operations, the cursor holds the data that needs to be inserted. For
UPDATE and DELETE operations, the cursor identifies the rows that would be affected.
In PL/SQL, you can refer to the most recent implicit cursor as the SQL cursor, which always has
attributes such as %FOUND, %ISOPEN, %NOTFOUND, and %ROWCOUNT. The SQL cursor has
additional attributes, %BULK_ROWCOUNT and %BULK_EXCEPTIONS, designed for use with
the FORALL statement. The following table provides the description of the most used attributes −

S.No Attribute & Description

%FOUND
1
Returns TRUE if an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement affected one or more rows or
a SELECT INTO statement returned one or more rows. Otherwise, it returns FALSE.

%NOTFOUND
2 The logical opposite of %FOUND. It returns TRUE if an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE
statement affected no rows, or a SELECT INTO statement returned no rows. Otherwise, it
returns FALSE.

By Anand Harsha 161

 %ISOPEN
3
Always returns FALSE for implicit cursors, because Oracle closes the SQL cursor
automatically after executing its associated SQL statement.

%ROWCOUNT
4
Returns the number of rows affected by an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement, or
returned by a SELECT INTO statement.

Any SQL cursor attribute will be accessed as sql%attribute_name as shown below in the example.

Example
We will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the previous chapters.
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
The following program will update the table and increase the salary of each customer by 500 and use
the SQL%ROWCOUNT attribute to determine the number of rows affected −

DECLARE
total_rows number(2);
BEGIN
UPDATE customers
SET salary = salary + 500;
IF sql%notfound THEN
dbms_output.put_line('no customers selected');
ELSIF sql%found THEN
total_rows := sql%rowcount;
dbms_output.put_line( total_rows || ' customers selected ');
END IF;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
6 customers selected

By Anand Harsha 162

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
If you check the records in customers table, you will find that the rows have been updated −
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2500.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 2000.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2500.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 7000.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 9000.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 5000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Explicit Cursors
Explicit cursors are programmer-defined cursors for gaining more control over the context area. An
explicit cursor should be defined in the declaration section of the PL/SQL Block. It is created on a
SELECT Statement which returns more than one row.
The syntax for creating an explicit cursor is −
CURSOR cursor_name IS select_statement;
Working with an explicit cursor includes the following steps −

 Declaring the cursor for initializing the memory

 Opening the cursor for allocating the memory
 Fetching the cursor for retrieving the data
 Closing the cursor to release the allocated memory

Declaring the Cursor

Declaring the cursor defines the cursor with a name and the associated SELECT statement. For example
−

CURSOR c_customers IS
SELECT id, name, address FROM customers;

Opening the Cursor

Opening the cursor allocates the memory for the cursor and makes it ready for fetching the rows
returned by the SQL statement into it. For example, we will open the above defined cursor as follows −

OPEN c_customers;

By Anand Harsha 163

Fetching the Cursor
Fetching the cursor involves accessing one row at a time. For example, we will fetch rows from the
above-opened cursor as follows −

FETCH c_customers INTO c_id, c_name, c_addr;

Closing the Cursor

Closing the cursor means releasing the allocated memory. For example, we will close the above-opened
cursor as follows −

CLOSE c_customers;

Example
Following is a complete example to illustrate the concepts of explicit cursors &minua;

DECLARE
c_id customers.id%type;
c_name customer.name%type;
c_addr customers.address%type;
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT id, name, address FROM customers;
BEGIN
OPEN c_customers;
LOOP
FETCH c_customers into c_id, c_name, c_addr;
EXIT WHEN c_customers%notfound;
dbms_output.put_line(c_id || ' ' || c_name || ' ' || c_addr);
END LOOP;
CLOSE c_customers;
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
1 Ramesh Ahmedabad
2 Khilan Delhi
3 kaushik Kota
4 Chaitali Mumbai
5 Hardik Bhopal
6 Komal MP

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

By Anand Harsha 164

PL/SQL Exceptions
we will discuss Exceptions in PL/SQL. An exception is an error condition during a program execution.
PL/SQL supports programmers to catch such conditions using EXCEPTION block in the program and an
appropriate action is taken against the error condition. There are two types of exceptions −

 System-defined exceptions
 User-defined exceptions

Syntax for Exception Handling

The general syntax for exception handling is as follows. Here you can list down as many exceptions as
you can handle. The default exception will be handled using WHEN others THEN −

DECLARE
<declarations section>
BEGIN
<executable command(s)>
EXCEPTION
<exception handling goes here >
WHEN exception1 THEN
exception1-handling-statements
WHEN exception2 THEN
exception2-handling-statements
WHEN exception3 THEN
exception3-handling-statements
........
WHEN others THEN
exception3-handling-statements
END;

Example
Let us write a code to illustrate the concept. We will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created
and used in the previous chapters −

DECLARE
c_id customers.id%type := 8;
c_name customerS.Name%type;
c_addr customers.address%type;
BEGIN
SELECT name, address INTO c_name, c_addr
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Name: '|| c_name);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Address: ' || c_addr);

EXCEPTION
WHEN no_data_found THEN

By Anand Harsha 165

 dbms_output.put_line('No such customer!');
WHEN others THEN
dbms_output.put_line('Error!');
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
No such customer!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The above program displays the name and address of a customer whose ID is given. Since there is no
customer with ID value 8 in our database, the program raises the run-time
exception NO_DATA_FOUND, which is captured in the EXCEPTION block.

Raising Exceptions
Exceptions are raised by the database server automatically whenever there is any internal database
error, but exceptions can be raised explicitly by the programmer by using the command RAISE.
Following is the simple syntax for raising an exception −

DECLARE
exception_name EXCEPTION;
BEGIN
IF condition THEN
RAISE exception_name;
END IF;
EXCEPTION
WHEN exception_name THEN
statement;
END;

You can use the above syntax in raising the Oracle standard exception or any user-defined exception. In
the next section, we will give you an example on raising a user-defined exception. You can raise the
Oracle standard exceptions in a similar way.

User-defined Exceptions
PL/SQL allows you to define your own exceptions according to the need of your program. A user-
defined exception must be declared and then raised explicitly, using either a RAISE statement or the
procedure DBMS_STANDARD.RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR.
The syntax for declaring an exception is −
DECLARE
my-exception EXCEPTION;

Example
The following example illustrates the concept. This program asks for a customer ID, when the user
enters an invalid ID, the exception invalid_id is raised.

By Anand Harsha 166

DECLARE
c_id customers.id%type := &cc_id;
c_name customerS.Name%type;
c_addr customers.address%type;
-- user defined exception
ex_invalid_id EXCEPTION;
BEGIN
IF c_id <= 0 THEN
RAISE ex_invalid_id;
ELSE
SELECT name, address INTO c_name, c_addr
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Name: '|| c_name);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Address: ' || c_addr);
END IF;

EXCEPTION
WHEN ex_invalid_id THEN
dbms_output.put_line('ID must be greater than zero!');
WHEN no_data_found THEN
dbms_output.put_line('No such customer!');
WHEN others THEN
dbms_output.put_line('Error!');
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Enter value for cc_id: -6 (let's enter a value -6)
old 2: c_id customers.id%type := &cc_id;
new 2: c_id customers.id%type := -6;
ID must be greater than zero!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Pre-defined Exceptions
PL/SQL provides many pre-defined exceptions, which are executed when any database rule is violated
by a program. For example, the predefined exception NO_DATA_FOUND is raised when a SELECT INTO
statement returns no rows. The following table lists few of the important pre-defined exceptions −

Oracle
Exception SQLCODE Description
Error

ACCESS_INTO_NULL 06530 -6530 It is raised when a null object is automatically

By Anand Harsha 167

 assigned a value.

It is raised when none of the choices in the

CASE_NOT_FOUND 06592 -6592 WHEN clause of a CASE statement is selected,
and there is no ELSE clause.

It is raised when a program attempts to apply

collection methods other than EXISTS to an
uninitialized nested table or varray, or the
COLLECTION_IS_NULL 06531 -6531
program attempts to assign values to the
elements of an uninitialized nested table or
varray.

It is raised when duplicate values are attempted

DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX 00001 -1
to be stored in a column with unique index.

It is raised when attempts are made to make a

INVALID_CURSOR 01001 -1001 cursor operation that is not allowed, such as
closing an unopened cursor.

It is raised when the conversion of a character

INVALID_NUMBER 01722 -1722 string into a number fails because the string does
not represent a valid number.

It is raised when a program attempts to log on to

LOGIN_DENIED 01017 -1017 the database with an invalid username or
password.

It is raised when a SELECT INTO statement

NO_DATA_FOUND 01403 +100
returns no rows.

It is raised when a database call is issued without

NOT_LOGGED_ON 01012 -1012
being connected to the database.

By Anand Harsha 168

PROGRAM_ERROR 06501 -6501 It is raised when PL/SQL has an internal problem.

It is raised when a cursor fetches value in a

ROWTYPE_MISMATCH 06504 -6504
variable having incompatible data type.

It is raised when a member method is invoked,

SELF_IS_NULL 30625 -30625 but the instance of the object type was not
initialized.

It is raised when PL/SQL ran out of memory or

STORAGE_ERROR 06500 -6500
memory was corrupted.

It is raised when a SELECT INTO statement

TOO_MANY_ROWS 01422 -1422
returns more than one row.

It is raised when an arithmetic, conversion,

VALUE_ERROR 06502 -6502
truncation, or sizeconstraint error occurs.

It is raised when an attempt is made to divide a

ZERO_DIVIDE 01476 1476
number by zero.

PL/SQL Triggers
we will discuss Triggers in PL/SQL. Triggers are stored programs, which are automatically executed or
fired when some events occur. Triggers are, in fact, written to be executed in response to any of the
following events −
 A database manipulation (DML) statement (DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE)
 A database definition (DDL) statement (CREATE, ALTER, or DROP).
 A database operation (SERVERERROR, LOGON, LOGOFF, STARTUP, or SHUTDOWN).
Triggers can be defined on the table, view, schema, or database with which the event is associated.

Benefits of Triggers
Triggers can be written for the following purposes −

By Anand Harsha 169

  Generating some derived column values automatically
 Enforcing referential integrity
 Event logging and storing information on table access
 Auditing
 Synchronous replication of tables
 Imposing security authorizations
 Preventing invalid transactions

Creating Triggers
The syntax for creating a trigger is −

CREATE [OR REPLACE ] TRIGGER trigger_name

{BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF }
{INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE}
[OF col_name]
ON table_name
[REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n]
[FOR EACH ROW]
WHEN (condition)
DECLARE
Declaration-statements
BEGIN
Executable-statements
EXCEPTION
Exception-handling-statements
END;
Where,
 CREATE [OR REPLACE] TRIGGER trigger_name − Creates or replaces an exis ng trigger with
the trigger_name.
 {BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF} − This specifies when the trigger will be executed. The INSTEAD
OF clause is used for creating trigger on a view.
 {INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE} − This specifies the DML opera on.
 [OF col_name] − This specifies the column name that will be updated.
 [ON table_name] − This specifies the name of the table associated with the trigger.
 [REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n] − This allows you to refer new and old values for various
DML statements, such as INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.
 [FOR EACH ROW] − This specifies a row-level trigger, i.e., the trigger will be executed for each
row being affected. Otherwise the trigger will execute just once when the SQL statement is
executed, which is called a table level trigger.
 WHEN (condition) − This provides a condition for rows for which the trigger would fire. This
clause is valid only for row-level triggers.

By Anand Harsha 170

Example
To start with, we will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the previous chapters
−
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
The following program creates a row-level trigger for the customers table that would fire for INSERT or
UPDATE or DELETE operations performed on the CUSTOMERS table. This trigger will display the salary
difference between the old values and new values −

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER display_salary_changes

BEFORE DELETE OR INSERT OR UPDATE ON customers
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN (NEW.ID > 0)
DECLARE
sal_diff number;
BEGIN
sal_diff := :NEW.salary - :OLD.salary;
dbms_output.put_line('Old salary: ' || :OLD.salary);
dbms_output.put_line('New salary: ' || :NEW.salary);
dbms_output.put_line('Salary difference: ' || sal_diff);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Trigger created.
The following points need to be considered here −
 OLD and NEW references are not available for table-level triggers, rather you can use them for
record-level triggers.
 If you want to query the table in the same trigger, then you should use the AFTER keyword,
because triggers can query the table or change it again only after the initial changes are applied
and the table is back in a consistent state.
 The above trigger has been written in such a way that it will fire before any DELETE or INSERT or
UPDATE operation on the table, but you can write your trigger on a single or multiple

By Anand Harsha 171

 operations, for example BEFORE DELETE, which will fire whenever a record will be deleted
using the DELETE operation on the table.

Triggering a Trigger
Let us perform some DML operations on the CUSTOMERS table. Here is one INSERT statement, which
will create a new record in the table −

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (7, 'Kriti', 22, 'HP', 7500.00 );

When a record is created in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create

trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −
Old salary:
New salary: 7500
Salary difference:
Because this is a new record, old salary is not available and the above result comes as null. Let us now
perform one more DML operation on the CUSTOMERS table. The UPDATE statement will update an
existing record in the table −

UPDATE customers
SET salary = salary + 500
WHERE id = 2;
When a record is updated in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create
trigger, display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −
Old salary: 1500
New salary: 2000
Salary difference: 500

PL/SQL Package
we will discuss the Packages in PL/SQL. Packages are schema objects that groups logically related
PL/SQL types, variables, and subprograms.
A package will have two mandatory parts −

 Package specification
 Package body or definition

Package Specification
The specification is the interface to the package. It just DECLARES the types, variables, constants,
exceptions, cursors, and subprograms that can be referenced from outside the package. In other
words, it contains all information about the content of the package, but excludes the code for the
subprograms.

By Anand Harsha 172

All objects placed in the specification are called public objects. Any subprogram not in the package
specification but coded in the package body is called a private object.
The following code snippet shows a package specification having a single procedure. You can have
many global variables defined and multiple procedures or functions inside a package.

CREATE PACKAGE cust_sal AS

PROCEDURE find_sal(c_id customers.id%type);
END cust_sal;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Package created.

Package Body
The package body has the codes for various methods declared in the package specification and other
private declarations, which are hidden from the code outside the package.
The CREATE PACKAGE BODY Statement is used for creating the package body. The following code
snippet shows the package body declaration for the cust_sal package created above. I assumed that we
already have CUSTOMERS table created in our database as mentioned in the PL/SQL -
Variables chapter.

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY cust_sal AS

PROCEDURE find_sal(c_id customers.id%TYPE) IS

c_sal customers.salary%TYPE;
BEGIN
SELECT salary INTO c_sal
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
dbms_output.put_line('Salary: '|| c_sal);
END find_sal;
END cust_sal;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Package body created.

Using the Package Elements

The package elements (variables, procedures or functions) are accessed with the following syntax −
package_name.element_name;
Consider, we already have created the above package in our database schema, the following program
uses the find_sal method of the cust_sal package −

DECLARE
code customers.id%type := &cc_id;

By Anand Harsha 173

BEGIN
cust_sal.find_sal(code);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it prompts to enter the customer ID and when
you enter an ID, it displays the corresponding salary as follows −
Enter value for cc_id: 1
Salary: 3000

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example
The following program provides a more complete package. We will use the CUSTOMERS table stored in
our database with the following records −
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 3000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 3000.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 3000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 7500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 9500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 5500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

The Package Specification

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE c_package AS
-- Adds a customer
PROCEDURE addCustomer(c_id customers.id%type,
c_name customerS.No.ame%type,
c_age customers.age%type,
c_addr customers.address%type,
c_sal customers.salary%type);

-- Removes a customer
PROCEDURE delCustomer(c_id customers.id%TYPE);
--Lists all customers
PROCEDURE listCustomer;

END c_package;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it creates the above package and displays the
following result −

By Anand Harsha 174

Package created.

Creating the Package Body

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY c_package AS
PROCEDURE addCustomer(c_id customers.id%type,
c_name customerS.No.ame%type,
c_age customers.age%type,
c_addr customers.address%type,
c_sal customers.salary%type)
IS
BEGIN
INSERT INTO customers (id,name,age,address,salary)
VALUES(c_id, c_name, c_age, c_addr, c_sal);
END addCustomer;

PROCEDURE delCustomer(c_id customers.id%type) IS

BEGIN
DELETE FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
END delCustomer;

PROCEDURE listCustomer IS
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT name FROM customers;
TYPE c_list is TABLE OF customers.Name%type;
name_list c_list := c_list();
counter integer :=0;
BEGIN
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter +1;
name_list.extend;
name_list(counter) := n.name;
dbms_output.put_line('Customer(' ||counter|| ')'||name_list(counter));
END LOOP;
END listCustomer;

END c_package;
/
The above example makes use of the nested table. We will discuss the concept of nested table in the
next chapter.
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Package body created.

Using The Package

The following program uses the methods declared and defined in the package c_package.

By Anand Harsha 175

DECLARE
code customers.id%type:= 8;
BEGIN
c_package.addcustomer(7, 'Rajnish', 25, 'Chennai', 3500);
c_package.addcustomer(8, 'Subham', 32, 'Delhi', 7500);
c_package.listcustomer;
c_package.delcustomer(code);
c_package.listcustomer;
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal
Customer(7): Rajnish
Customer(8): Subham
Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal
Customer(7): Rajnish

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

PL/SQL Transactions
we will discuss the transactions in PL/SQL. A database transaction is an atomic unit of work that may
consist of one or more related SQL statements. It is called atomic because the database modifications
brought about by the SQL statements that constitute a transaction can collectively be either
committed, i.e., made permanent to the database or rolled back (undone) from the database.
A successfully executed SQL statement and a committed transaction are not same. Even if an SQL
statement is executed successfully, unless the transaction containing the statement is committed, it
can be rolled back and all changes made by the statement(s) can be undone.

Starting and Ending a Transaction

A transaction has a beginning and an end. A transaction starts when one of the following events take
place −

By Anand Harsha 176

  The first SQL statement is performed after connecting to the database.
 At each new SQL statement issued after a transaction is completed.
A transaction ends when one of the following events take place −
 A COMMIT or a ROLLBACK statement is issued.
 A DDL statement, such as CREATE TABLE statement, is issued; because in that case a COMMIT is
automatically performed.
 A DCL statement, such as a GRANT statement, is issued; because in that case a COMMIT is
automatically performed.
 User disconnects from the database.
 User exits from SQL*PLUS by issuing the EXIT command, a COMMIT is automatically performed.
 SQL*Plus terminates abnormally, a ROLLBACK is automatically performed.
 A DML statement fails; in that case a ROLLBACK is automatically performed for undoing that
DML statement.

Committing a Transaction
A transaction is made permanent by issuing the SQL command COMMIT. The general syntax for the
COMMIT command is −
COMMIT;
For example,

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (1, 'Ramesh', 32, 'Ahmedabad', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (2, 'Khilan', 25, 'Delhi', 1500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (3, 'kaushik', 23, 'Kota', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (4, 'Chaitali', 25, 'Mumbai', 6500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (5, 'Hardik', 27, 'Bhopal', 8500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (6, 'Komal', 22, 'MP', 4500.00 );

COMMIT;

By Anand Harsha 177

Rolling Back Transactions
Changes made to the database without COMMIT could be undone using the ROLLBACK command.
The general syntax for the ROLLBACK command is −
ROLLBACK [TO SAVEPOINT < savepoint_name>];
When a transaction is aborted due to some unprecedented situation, like system failure, the entire
transaction since a commit is automatically rolled back. If you are not using savepoint, then simply use
the following statement to rollback all the changes −
ROLLBACK;

Savepoints
Savepoints are sort of markers that help in splitting a long transaction into smaller units by setting
some checkpoints. By setting savepoints within a long transaction, you can roll back to a checkpoint if
required. This is done by issuing the SAVEPOINT command.
The general syntax for the SAVEPOINT command is −
SAVEPOINT < savepoint_name >;
For example

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (7, 'Rajnish', 27, 'HP', 9500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (8, 'Riddhi', 21, 'WB', 4500.00 );
SAVEPOINT sav1;

UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000;
ROLLBACK TO sav1;

UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000
WHERE ID = 7;
UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000
WHERE ID = 8;

COMMIT;

ROLLBACK TO sav1 − This statement rolls back all the changes up to the point, where you had marked
savepoint sav1.
After that, the new changes that you make will start.

By Anand Harsha 178

Automatic Transaction Control
To execute a COMMIT automatically whenever an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE command is executed,
you can set the AUTOCOMMIT environment variable as −
SET AUTOCOMMIT ON;
You can turn-off the auto commit mode using the following command −
SET AUTOCOMMIT OFF;

PL/SQL Date and Time

we will discuss the Date and Time in PL/SQL. There are two classes of date and time related data types
in PL/SQL −

 Datetime data types

 Interval data types
The Datetime data types are −

 DATE
 TIMESTAMP
 TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
 TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE
The Interval data types are −

 INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH

 INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND

Field Values for Datetime and Interval Data Types

Both datetime and interval data types consist of fields. The values of these fields determine the value
of the data type. The following table lists the fields and their possible values for datetimes and
intervals.

Field Name Valid Datetime Values Valid Interval Values

YEAR -4712 to 9999 (excluding year 0) Any nonzero integer

MONTH 01 to 12 0 to 11

By Anand Harsha 179

 01 to 31 (limited by the values of MONTH
DAY and YEAR, according to the rules of the Any nonzero integer
calendar for the locale)

HOUR 00 to 23 0 to 23

MINUTE 00 to 59 0 to 59

00 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is the precision 0 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is

SECOND of time fractional seconds the precision of interval
The 9(n) portion is not applicable for fractional seconds
DATE.

-12 to 14 (range accommodates daylight

TIMEZONE_HOUR savings time changes) Not applicable

Not applicable for DATE or TIMESTAMP.

TIMEZONE_MINUTE 00 to 59 Not applicable

Not applicable for DATE or TIMESTAMP.

TIMEZONE_REGION Not applicable for DATE or TIMESTAMP. Not applicable

TIMEZONE_ABBR Not applicable for DATE or TIMESTAMP. Not applicable

The Datetime Data Types and Functions

Following are the Datetime data types −

DATE
It stores date and time information in both character and number datatypes. It is made of information
on century, year, month, date, hour, minute, and second. It is specified as −

TIMESTAMP
It is an extension of the DATE data type. It stores the year, month, and day of the DATE datatype, along
with hour, minute, and second values. It is useful for storing precise time values.

By Anand Harsha 180

TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
It is a variant of TIMESTAMP that includes a time zone region name or a time zone offset in its value.
The time zone offset is the difference (in hours and minutes) between local time and UTC. This data
type is useful for collecting and evaluating date information across geographic regions.

TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE

It is another variant of TIMESTAMP that includes a time zone offset in its value.
Following table provides the Datetime functions (where, x has the datetime value) −

S.No Function Name & Description

1 ADD_MONTHS(x, y);
Adds y months to x.

2 LAST_DAY(x);
Returns the last day of the month.

3 MONTHS_BETWEEN(x, y);
Returns the number of months between x and y.

4 NEXT_DAY(x, day);
Returns the datetime of the next day after x.

5 NEW_TIME;
Returns the time/day value from a time zone specified by the user.

6 ROUND(x [, unit]);
Rounds x.

7 SYSDATE();
Returns the current datetime.

8 TRUNC(x [, unit]);

By Anand Harsha 181

 Truncates x.

Timestamp functions (where, x has a timestamp value) −

S.No Function Name & Description

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP();
1
Returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE containing the current session time along with
the session time zone.

EXTRACT({ YEAR | MONTH | DAY | HOUR | MINUTE | SECOND } | { TIMEZONE_HOUR |

2 TIMEZONE_MINUTE } | { TIMEZONE_REGION | } TIMEZONE_ABBR ) FROM x)
Extracts and returns a year, month, day, hour, minute, second, or time zone from x.

FROM_TZ(x, time_zone);
3
Converts the TIMESTAMP x and the time zone specified by time_zone to a TIMESTAMP
WITH TIMEZONE.

4 LOCALTIMESTAMP();
Returns a TIMESTAMP containing the local time in the session time zone.

SYSTIMESTAMP();
5
Returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE containing the current database time along with
the database time zone.

SYS_EXTRACT_UTC(x);
6
Converts the TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE x to a TIMESTAMP containing the date and
time in UTC.

7 TO_TIMESTAMP(x, [format]);
Converts the string x to a TIMESTAMP.

8 TO_TIMESTAMP_TZ(x, [format]);

By Anand Harsha 182

 Converts the string x to a TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE.

Examples
The following code snippets illustrate the use of the above functions −
Example 1

SELECT SYSDATE FROM DUAL;

Output −
08/31/2012 5:25:34 PM
Example 2

SELECT TO_CHAR(CURRENT_DATE, 'DD-MM-YYYY HH:MI:SS') FROM DUAL;

Output −
31-08-2012 05:26:14
Example 3

SELECT ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, 5) FROM DUAL;

Output −
01/31/2013 5:26:31 PM
Example 4

SELECT LOCALTIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

Output −
8/31/2012 5:26:55.347000 PM

The Interval Data Types and Functions

Following are the Interval data types −
 IINTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH − It stores a period of time using the YEAR and MONTH datetime
fields.
 INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND − It stores a period of me in terms of days, hours, minutes, and
seconds.

Interval Functions
S.No Function Name & Description

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1 NUMTODSINTERVAL(x, interval_unit);
Converts the number x to an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND.

2 NUMTOYMINTERVAL(x, interval_unit);
Converts the number x to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH.

3 TO_DSINTERVAL(x);
Converts the string x to an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND.

4 TO_YMINTERVAL(x);
Converts the string x to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH.

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References
1. http://blog.unisoftindia.org/2014/12/oracle-architecture-explained-in.html
2. https://drive.google.com/file/d/188s5lNpx9zIKuOKJpjiJ8iM2gh9pbOXz/view
3. http://www.indoreindira.com/UG/images/BCA/BCA%20IV%20%20Notes/BCA%20IV%20
PDF/BCA%20IV%20Sem%20Database%20Management%20System.pdf
4. https://beginnersbook.com/2015/04/levels-of-abstraction-in-dbms/.
5. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dbms/dbms_data_independence.htm
6. https://whatisdbms.com/data-definition-language-ddl-in-dbms-with-examples/
7. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sql-ddl-dql-dml-dcl-tcl-commands/
8. http://www.exploredatabase.com/2017/07/reduce-er-diagram-to-relation-table-solved-
exercise.html

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 Question Paper
1. 20 questions of 2 Marks

1. What is Tuple?
2. Define Database Model.
3. Differentiate between entity and entity set.
4. Difference between File organization and DBMS.
5. List Union compatible rules.
6. List Role of Database administrator.
7. What is Foreign Key.
8. Draw PL/SQL block of code and explain in short.
9. What are database languages list them with example.
10. Explain Views in oracle.
11. What is Tuple?
12. Define Database Model.
13. Differentiate between entity and entity set.
14. Difference between File organization and DBMS.
15. List Role of Database administrator.
16. List the types of Attributes.
17. Draw an ER diagram for a College.
18. What are database languages list them?
19. Write down advantages of DBMS
20. What are the disadvantages of DBMS.?

2. 5 questions of 7 Marks

1. Explain Difference Between Function and procedure.

2. What the advantage of relational database?
3. What do you understand by redundancy of Data?
4. Differentiate between strong entity and weak entity?

5. Define Overall DBMS Architecture

6. What is DBA Stands for? What are the Roles of DBA in DBMS.?
7. What are the different Views of DBMS?

3. 3 questions of 10 Marks
1. a) Explain Oracle Architecture.
b) Draw an E-R Diagram for College like organization.

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 2. a) Explain different types of Attributes with suitable example.

b) Write short note on

1. Generalization and Specialization
2. Cursor

3. a) Explain Trigger with an Example

b) Explain Functions in PL/SQL.

4. a). Create a PL/SQL block of code to find total number of records in a table.

b). Write a query to Apply a check Constraint on product table so that all the product
number should

start with ‘P’ like ‘P101’.

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 Assignments to Students
Q1- Write a program in PL/SQL to draw a table of a given number using

a. While loop
b. For loop
c. Simple loop

Q2- Write a program in PL/SQL to reverse of a given string.

Hint: “INDIA” Reverse “AIDNI”

Q3- Write a program in PL/SQL to find the largest among three given numbers.

Q4- Write a program in PL/SQL to find square of a given number.

Q5- Write a program in PL/SQL to check whether the given character is vowel or not

Hint: vowel = a, e, i, o, u

Q.6- Write a PL/SQL block of code to retrieve record for a given key value of a table.

Q.7-Write a PL/SQL block of code to print grade for a given percentage using if...eslif...end if statement.

Q.8- Write a program to interchange two given numbers.

Q.9- Create a procedure to square of a given number.

Q.10- Create a Function to factorial or a given number.

Q.11- Create a PL/SQL code of block to store radius and area of a circle in a table for the given radius
3,4,5,6,7

Q.12- Create a procedure to make some of digits for a given number.

Q.13- Create a statement trigger applied on product table and store values in product_check table;

Q.14- Create a row level Trigger applied on product table and store values in product_check table.

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