CS232L – Database Management System

INTRO TO DBMS AND

POSTGRESQL

Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering

Sciences
 CS232-L – LAB 1

Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering

CS232L – Database Management system Lab

Lab 1 – Intro to DBMS and PostgreSQL

Objective
The objective of this session is to get basic introduction to DBMS and installation guide to
PostgreSQL0. Also we will cover basic DDL and DML commands.
Instructions
• Open the handout/lab manual in front of a computer in the lab during the session.
• Practice each new command by completing the examples and exercise.
• Turn-in the answers for all the exercise problems as your lab report.
• When answering problems, indicate the commands you entered and the output displayed.

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What is DBMS?
A database management system (DBMS) is system software for creating and managing
databases. The DBMS provides users and programmers with a systematic way to create,
retrieve, update and manage data. A DBMS makes it possible for end users to create, read,
update and delete data in a database. The DBMS essentially serves as an interface between the
database and end users or application programs, ensuring that data is consistently organized
and remains easily accessible.

The DBMS manages three important things: the data, the database engine that allows data to
be accessed, locked and modified -- and the database schema, which defines the database’s
logical structure. These three foundational elements help provide concurrency, security, data
integrity and uniform administration procedures. Typical database administration tasks
supported by the DBMS include change management, performance monitoring/tuning and
backup and recovery. Many database management systems are also responsible for automated
rollbacks, restarts and recovery as well as the logging and auditing of activity. The DBMS is
perhaps most useful for providing a centralized view of data that can be accessed by multiple
users, from multiple locations, in a controlled manner.

The DBMS can offer both logical and physical data independence. That means it can protect
users and applications from needing to know where data is stored or having to be concerned
about changes to the physical structure of data (storage and hardware). As long as programs
use the application programming interface (API) for the database that is provided by the
DBMS, developers won't have to modify programs just because changes have been made to
the database.

Figure 1. General Structure of DBMS

Some of the DBMS examples include:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• SQL Server
• Oracle
• dBASE
• FoxPro

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What is PostgreSQL

Let’s start with a simple question: what is PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is an advanced, enterprise-class, and open-source relational database system.
PostgreSQL supports both SQL (relational) and JSON (non-relational) querying.
PostgreSQL is a highly stable database backed by more than 20 years of development by the
open-source community.
PostgreSQL is used as a primary database for many web applications as well as mobile and
analytics applications.

PostgreSQL’s community pronounces PostgreSQL as /ˈpoʊstɡrɛs ˌkjuː ˈɛl/.

History of PostgreSQL

The PostgreSQL project started in 1986 at Berkeley Computer Science Department,

University of California.

The project was originally named POSTGRES, in reference to the older Ingres database
which also developed at Berkeley. The goal of the POSTGRES project was to add the
minimal features needed to support multiple data types.

In 1996, the POSTGRES project was renamed to PostgreSQL to clearly illustrate its support
for SQL. Today, PostgreSQL is commonly abbreviated as Postgres.

Since then, the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, a dedicated community of

contributors continues to make the releases of the open-source and free database project.

Originally, PostgreSQL was designed to run on UNIX-like platforms. And then, PostgreSQL
was evolved run on various platforms such as Windows, macOS, and Solaris.

Common Use cases of PostgreSQL

The following are the common use cases of PostgreSQL.

1) A robust database in the LAPP stack

LAPP stands for Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, and PHP (or Python and Perl). PostgreSQL is
primarily used as a robust back-end database that powers many dynamic websites and web
applications.

2) General purpose transaction database

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Large corporations and startups alike use PostgreSQL as primary databases to support their
applications and products.

3) Geospatial database

PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension supports geospatial databases for geographic
information systems (GIS).

Language support

PostgreSQL support most popular programming languages:

• Python
• Java
• C#
• C/C+
• Ruby
• JavaScript (Node.js)
• Perl
• Go
• Tcl

PostgreSQL feature highlights

PostgreSQL has many advanced features that other enterprise-class database management
systems offer, such as:

• User-defined types
• Table inheritance
• Sophisticated locking mechanism
• Foreign key referential integrity
• Views, rules, subquery
• Nested transactions (savepoints)
• Multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)
• Asynchronous replication

The recent versions of PostgreSQL support the following features:

• Native Microsoft Windows Server version

• Tablespaces
• Point-in-time recovery

And more new features are added in each new release.

PostgreSQL is designed to be extensible. PostgreSQL allows you to define your own data
types, index types, functional languages, etc.

If you don’t like any part of the system, you can always develop a custom plugin to enhance it
to meet your requirements e.g., adding a new optimizer.

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Who uses PostgreSQL

Many companies have built products and solutions based on PostgreSQL. Some featured
companies are Apple, Fujitsu, Red Hat, Cisco, Juniper Network, Instagram, etc.

PostgreSQL was developed for UNIX-like platforms, however, it was designed to be portable.
It means that PostgreSQL can also run on other platforms such as macOS, Solaris, and
Windows.

Install PostgreSQL on Windows

Since version 8.0, PostgreSQL offers an installer for Windows systems that makes the
installation process easier and faster. For development purposes, we will install PostgreSQL
version 12 on Windows 10.

1) Download PostgreSQL Installer for Windows

First, you need to go to the download page of PostgreSQL installers on the EnterpriseDB.

Second, click the download link as shown below:

It will take a few minutes to complete the download.

2) Install PostgreSQL on Window step by step

To install PostgreSQL on Windows, you need to have administrator privileges.

Step 1. Double click on the installer file, an installation wizard will appear and guide you
through multiple steps where you can choose different options that you would like to have in
PostgreSQL.

Step 2. Click the Next button

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Step 3. Specify installation folder, choose your own or keep the default folder suggested by
PostgreSQL installer and click the Next button

Step 4. Select software components to install:

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• The PostgreSQL Server to install the PostgreSQL database server

• pgAdmin 4 to install the PostgreSQL database GUI management tool.
• Command Line Tools to install command-line tools such as psql, pg_restore, etc.
These tools allow you to interact with the PostgreSQL database server using the
command-line interface.
• Stack Builder provides a GUI that allows you to download and install drivers that
work with PostgreSQL.

For the tutorial on this website, you don’t need to install Stack Builder so feel free to uncheck
it and click the Next button to select the data directory:

Step 5. Select the database directory to store the data or accept the default folder. And click
the Next button to go to the next step:

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Step 6. Enter the password for the database superuser (postgres)

PostgreSQL runs as a service in the background under a service account named postgres. If
you already created a service account with the name postgres, you need to provide the
password of that account in the following window.

After entering the password, you need to retype it to confirm and click the Next button:

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Step 7. Enter a port number on which the PostgreSQL database server will listen. The default
port of PostgreSQL is 5432. You need to make sure that no other applications are using this
port.

Step 8. Choose the default locale used by the PostgreSQL database. If you leave it as default
locale, PostgreSQL will use the operating system locale. After that click the Next button.

Step 9. The setup wizard will show the summary information of PostgreSQL. You need to
review it and click the Next button if everything is correct. Otherwise, you need to click the
Back button to change the configuration accordingly.

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Now, you’re ready to install PostgreSQL on your computer. Click the Next button to begin
installing PostgreSQL.

The installation may take a few minutes to complete.

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Step 10. Click the Finish button to complete the PostgreSQL installation.

3) Verify the Installation

There are several ways to verify the PostgreSQL installation. You can try to connect to the
PostgreSQL database server from any client application e.g., psql and pgAdmin.

The quick way to verify the installation is through the psql program.

First, click the psql application to launch it. The psql command-line program will display.

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Second, enter all the necessary information such as the server, database, port, username, and
password. To accept the default, you can press Enter. Note that you should provide the
password that you entered during installing the PostgreSQL.

Server [localhost]:
Database [postgres]:
Port [5432]:
Username [postgres]:
Password for user postgres:
psql (12.3)
WARNING: Console code page (437) differs from Windows code page (1252)
8-bit characters might not work correctly. See psql reference
page "Notes for Windows users" for details.
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#
Code language: Shell Session (shell)
Third, issue the command SELECT version(); you will see the following output:

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Congratulation! you’ve successfully installed PostgreSQL database server on your local

system.

Connect To a PostgreSQL Database Server

When you installed the PostgreSQL database server, the PostgreSQL installer also installed
some useful tools for working with the PostgreSQL database server. In this tutorial, you will
learn how to connect to the PostgreSQL database server via the following tools:

• psql – a terminal-based front-end to PostgreSQL database server.

• pgAdmin – a web-based front-end to PostgreSQL database server.

1) Connect to PostgreSQL database server using psql

psql is an interactive terminal program provided by PostgreSQL. It allows you to interact with
the PostgreSQL database server such as executing SQL statements and managing database
objects.

The following steps show you how to connect to the PostgreSQL database server via
the psql program:

First, launch the psql program and connect to the PostgreSQL Database Server using
the postgres user:

Second, enter all the information such as Server, Database, Port, Username, and Password. If
you press Enter, the program will use the default value specified in the square bracket [] and
move the cursor to the new line. For example, localhost is the default database server. In the
step for entering the password for user postgres, you need to enter the password the user
postgres that you chose during the PostgreSQL installation.

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Third, interact with the PostgreSQL Database Server by issuing an SQL statement. The
following statement returns the current version of PostgreSQL:

SELECT version();
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Please do not forget to end the statement with a semicolon (;). After pressing Enter, psql will
return the current PostgreSQL version on your system.

2) Connect to PostgreSQL database server using pgAdmin

The second way to connect to a database is by using a pgAdmin application. The pgAdmin
application allows you to interact with the PostgreSQL database server via an intuitive user
interface.

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The following illustrates how to connect to a database using pgAdmin GUI application:

First, launch the pgAdmin application.

The pgAdmin application will launch on the web browser as shown in the following picture:

Second, right-click the Servers node and select Create > Server… menu to create a server

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Third, enter the server name e.g., PostgreSQL and click the Connection tab:

Fourth, enter the host and password for the postgres user and click the Save button:

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Fifth, click on the Servers node to expand the server. By default, PostgreSQL has a database
named postgres as shown below:

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Sixth, open the query tool by choosing the menu item Tool > Query Tool or click the
lightning icon.

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Seventh, enter the query in the Query Editor, click the Execute button, you will see the
result of the query displaying in the Data Output tab:

Load PostgreSQL Sample Database

Before going forward with this, you need to have:

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• A PostgreSQL database server installed on your system.

• A PostgreSQL sample database called dvdrental.

The DVD rental database represents the business processes of a DVD rental store. The DVD
rental database has many objects, including:
• 15 tables
• 1 trigger
• 7 views
• 8 functions
• 1 domain
• 13 sequences

PostgreSQL Sample Database Tables

There are 15 tables in the DVD Rental database:
• actor – stores actors data including first name and last name.
• film – stores film data such as title, release year, length, rating, etc.
• film_actor – stores the relationships between films and actors.
• category – stores film’s categories data.
• film_category- stores the relationships between films and categories.
• store – contains the store data including manager staff and address.
• inventory – stores inventory data.
• rental – stores rental data.
• payment – stores customer’s payments.
• staff – stores staff data.
• customer – stores customer data.
• address – stores address data for staff and customers
• city – stores city names.
• country – stores country names.

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DVD Rental ER Model

Load the sample database using psql tool

First, launch the psql tool.

>psql

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Second, enter the account’s information to log in to the PostgreSQL database server. You can
use the default value provided by psql by pressing the Enter keyboard. However, for the
password, you need to enter the one that you provided during PostgreSQL installation.

Server [localhost]:
Database [postgres]:
Port [5432]:
Username [postgres]:
Password for user postgres:
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Third, enter the following CREATE DATABASE statement to create a

new dvdrental database.

postgres=# CREATE DATABASE dvdrental;

CREATE DATABASE

PostgreSQL will create a new database named dvdrental.

Finally, enter the exit command to quit psql:

postgres=# exit
Code language: PHP (php)

Then, navigate the bin folder of the PostgreSQL installation folder:

C:\>cd C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\12\bin

After that, use the pg_restore tool to load data into the dvdrental database:

pg_restore -U postgres -d dvdrental C:\sampledb\dvdrental.tar

Code language: CSS (css)

In this command:

• The -U postgres specifies the postgresuser to login to the PostgreSQL database server.
• The -d dvdrental specifies the target database to load.

Finally, enter the password for the postgres user and press enter

Password:
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

It takes about seconds to load data stored in the dvdrental.tar file into the dvdrentaldatabase.

Load the DVD Rental database using the pgAdmin

The following shows you step by step on how to use the pgAdmin tool to restore the sample
database from the database file:

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First, launch the pgAdmin tool and connect to the PostgreSQL server.

Second, right click the Databases and select the Create > Database… menu option:

Third, enter the database name dvdrental and click the Save button:

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You’ll see the new empty database created under the Databases node:

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Fourth, right-click on the dvdrental database and choose Restore… menu item to restore the
database from the downloaded database file:

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Fifth, enter the path to the sample database file e.g., c:\sampledb\dvdrental.tar and click
the Restore button:

Sixth, the restoration process will complete in few seconds and shows the following dialog
once it completes:

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Finally, open the dvdrental database from object browser panel, you will find tables in
the public schema and other database objects as shown in the following picture:

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Overview of PostgreSQL data types

PostgreSQL supports the following data types:

• Boolean
• Character types such as char, varchar, and text.
• Numeric types such as integer and floating-point number.
• Temporal types such as date, time, timestamp, and interval
• UUID for storing Universally Unique Identifiers
• Array for storing array strings, numbers, etc.
• JSON stores JSON data
• hstore stores key-value pair
• Special types such as network address and geometric data.

Boolean

A Boolean data type can hold one of three possible values: true, false or null. You
use boolean or bool keyword to declare a column with the Boolean data type.

When you insert data into a Boolean column, PostgreSQL converts it to a Boolean value

• 1, yes, y, t, true values are converted to true

• 0, no, false, f values are converted to false.

When you select data from a Boolean column, PostgreSQL converts the values back e.g., t to
true, f to false and space to null.

Character

PostgreSQL provides three character data types: CHAR(n), VARCHAR(n), and TEXT

• CHAR(n) is the fixed-length character with space padded. If you insert a string that is
shorter than the length of the column, PostgreSQL pads spaces. If you insert a string
that is longer than the length of the column, PostgreSQL will issue an error.
• VARCHAR(n) is the variable-length character string. With VARCHAR(n), you can store
up to n characters. PostgreSQL does not pad spaces when the stored string is shorter
than the length of the column.
• TEXT is the variable-length character string. Theoretically, text data is a character
string with unlimited length.

Numeric

PostgreSQL provides two distinct types of numbers:

• integers
• floating-point numbers

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Integer

There are three kinds of integers in PostgreSQL:

• Small integer ( SMALLINT) is 2-byte signed integer that has a range from -32,768 to
32,767.
• Integer ( INT) is a 4-byte integer that has a range from -2,147,483,648 to
2,147,483,647.
• Serial is the same as integer except that PostgreSQL will automatically generate and
populate values into the SERIAL column. This is similar
to AUTO_INCREMENT column in MySQL or AUTOINCREMENT column in
SQLite.

Floating-point number

There three main types of floating-point numbers:

• float(n) is a floating-point number whose precision, at least, n, up to a maximum of 8

bytes.
• realor float8is a 4-byte floating-point number.
• numeric or numeric(p,s) is a real number with p digits with s number after the decimal
point. The numeric(p,s) is the exact number.

Temporal data types

The temporal data types allow you to store date and /or time data. PostgreSQL has five main
temporal data types:

• DATEstores the dates only.

• TIMEstores the time of day values.
• TIMESTAMPstores both date and time values.
• TIMESTAMPTZ is a timezone-aware timestamp data type. It is the abbreviation
for timestamp with the time zone.
• INTERVAL stores periods of time.

The TIMESTAMPTZ is the PostgreSQL’s extension to the SQL standard’s temporal data types.

Arrays

In PostgreSQL, you can store an array of strings, an array of integers, etc., in array columns.
The array comes in handy in some situations e.g., storing days of the week, months of the
year.

JSON

PostgreSQL provides two JSON data types: JSON and JSONB for storing JSON data.

The JSON data type stores plain JSON data that requires reparsing for each processing,
while JSONB data type stores JSON data in a binary format which is faster to process but
slower to insert. In addition, JSONB supports indexing, which can be an advantage.

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UUID

The UUID data type allows you to store Universal Unique Identifiers defined by RFC 4122 .
The UUID values guarantee a better uniqueness than SERIAL and can be used to hide sensitive
data exposed to the public such as values of id in URL.

Special data types

• Besides the primitive data types, PostgreSQL also provides several special data types
related to geometric and network.
• box– a rectangular box.
• line – a set of points.
• point– a geometric pair of numbers.
• lseg– a line segment.
• polygon– a closed geometric.
• inet– an IP4 address.
• macaddr– a MAC address.

Types of SQL Commands

The following sections discuss the basic categories of commands used in SQL to perform
various functions. These functions include building database objects, manipulating objects,
populating database tables with data, updating existing data in tables, deleting data,
performing database queries, controlling database access, and overall database administration.
The main categories are:
a. DDL (Data Definition Language)
b. DML (Data Manipulation Language)
c. DQL (Data Query Language)
d. DCL (Data Control Language)
e. Data administration commands
f. Transactional control commands

Data Definition Language

Data Definition Language, DDL, is the part of SQL that allows a database user to create and
restructure database objects, such as the creation or the deletion of a table.
Some of the most fundamental DDL commands discussed during following hours include the
following:
• CREATE TABLE
• ALTER TABLE
• DROP TABLE
• CREATE INDEX
• ALTER INDEX
• DROP INDEX

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• VIEW
• DROP VIEW

Data Manipulation Language

Data Manipulation Language, DML, is the part of SQL used to manipulate data within objects
of a relational database.
There are three basic DML commands:
• INSERT
• UPDATE
• DELETE

Data Query Language

Though comprised of only one command, Data Query Language (DQL) is the most
concentrated focus of SQL for modern relational database users. The base command is as
follows:
• SELECT
This command, accompanied by many options and clauses, is used to compose queries
against a relational database. Queries, from simple to complex, from vague to specific, can be
easily created. A query is an inquiry to the database for information. A query is usually issued
to the database through an application interface or via a command line prompt.

Data Control Language

Data control commands in SQL allow you to control access to data within the database. These
DCL commands are normally used to create objects related to user access and also control the
distribution of privileges among users. Some data control commands are as follows:
• ALTER PASSWORD
• GRANT
• REVOKE
• CREATE SYNONYM
You will find that these commands are often grouped with other commands.

Data Administration Commands

Data administration commands allow the user to perform audits and perform analyses on
operations within the database. They can also be used to help analyse system performance.
Two general data administration commands are as follows:
• START AUDIT
• STOP AUDIT

Do not get data administration confused with database administration. Database

administration is the overall administration of a database, which envelops the use of all levels
of commands. Database administration is much more specific to each SQL implementation
than are those core commands of the SQL language.
Transactional Control Commands
In addition to the previously introduced categories of commands, there are commands that allow
the user to manage database transactions.
• COMMIT Saves database transactions
• ROLLBACK Undoes database transactions
• SAVEPOINT Creates points within groups of transactions in which to ROLLBACK

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SET TRANSACTION Places a name on a transaction

PostgreSQL CREATE TABLE

PostgreSQL CREATE TABLE syntax

A relational database consists of multiple related tables. A table consists of rows and columns.
Tables allow you to store structured data like customers, products, employees, etc.

To create a new table, you use the CREATE TABLE statement. The following illustrates the
basic syntax of the CREATE TABLE statement:

CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] table_name (

column1 datatype(length) column_contraint,
column2 datatype(length) column_contraint,
column3 datatype(length) column_contraint,
table_constraints
);

In this syntax:

• First, specify the name of the table after the CREATE TABLE keywords.
• Second, creating a table that already exists will result in a error. The IF NOT
EXISTS option allows you to create the new table only if it does not exist. When you
use the IF NOT EXISTS option and the table already exists, PostgreSQL issues a
notice instead of the error and skips creating the new table.
• Third, specify a comma-separated list of table columns. Each column consists of the
column name, the kind of data that column stores, the length of data, and the column
constraint. The column constraints specify rules that data stored in the column must
follow. For example, the not-null constraint enforces the values in the column cannot
be NULL. The column constraints include not null, unique, primary key, check,
foreign key constraints.
• Finally, specify the table constraints including primary key, foreign key, and check
constraints.

Note that some table constraints can be defined as column constraints like primary key,
foreign key, check, unique constraints.

Constraints

PostgreSQL includes the following column constraints:

• NOT NULL – ensures that values in a column cannot be NULL.

• UNIQUE – ensures the values in a column unique across the rows within the same
table.
• PRIMARY KEY – a primary key column uniquely identify rows in a table. A table
can have one and only one primary key. The primary key constraint allows you to
define the primary key of a table.

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• CHECK – a CHECK constraint ensures the data must satisfy a boolean expression.
• FOREIGN KEY – ensures values in a column or a group of columns from a table
exists in a column or group of columns in another table. Unlike the primary key, a
table can have many foreign keys.

Table constraints are similar to column constraints except that they are applied to more than
one column.

PostgreSQL CREATE TABLE examples

We will create a new table called accounts that has the following columns:

• user_id – primary key

• username – unique and not null
• password – not null
• email – unique and not null
• created_on – not null
• last_login – null

The following statement creates the accounts table:

CREATE TABLE accounts (

user_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR ( 50 ) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
password VARCHAR ( 50 ) NOT NULL,
email VARCHAR ( 255 ) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
created_on TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
last_login TIMESTAMP
);

The following statement creates the roles table that consists of two
columns: role_id and role_name:

CREATE TABLE roles(

role_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
role_name VARCHAR (255) UNIQUE NOT NULL
);

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The following statement creates the account_roles table that has three
columns: user_id, role_id and grant_date.

CREATE TABLE account_roles (

user_id INT NOT NULL,
role_id INT NOT NULL,
grant_date TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY (user_id, role_id),
FOREIGN KEY (role_id)
REFERENCES roles (role_id),
FOREIGN KEY (user_id)
REFERENCES accounts (user_id)
);

The primary key of the account_roles table consists of two columns: user_id and role_id,
therefore, we have to define the primary key constraint as a table constraint.

PRIMARY KEY (user_id, role_id)

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Because the user_idcolumn references to the user_idcolumn in the accounts table, we need to
define a foreign key constraint for the user_idcolumn:

FOREIGN KEY (user_id)

REFERENCES accounts (user_id)
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The role_idcolumn references the role_idcolumn in the roles table, we also need to define a
foreign key constraint for the role_idcolumn.

FOREIGN KEY (role_id)

REFERENCES roles (role_id)
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following shows the relationship between the accounts, roles, and account_roles tables:

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PostgreSQL ALTER TABLE

To change the structure of an existing table, you use PostgreSQL ALTER TABLE statement.

The following illustrates the basic syntax of the ALTER TABLE statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name action;

PostgreSQL provides you with many actions:

• Add a column
• Drop a column
• Change the data type of a column
• Rename a column
• Set a default value for the column.
• Add a constraint to a column.
• Rename a table

To add a new column to a table, you use ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ADD COLUMN column_name datatype column_constraint;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To drop a column from a table, you use ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

DROP COLUMN column_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To rename a column, you use the ALTER TABLE RENAME COLUMN TO statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

RENAME COLUMN column_name
TO new_column_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To change a default value of the column, you use ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN SET
DEFAULT or DROP DEFAULT:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ALTER COLUMN column_name

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[SET DEFAULT value | DROP DEFAULT];

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To change the NOT NULL constraint, you use ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ALTER COLUMN column_name
[SET NOT NULL| DROP NOT NULL];
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To add a CHECK constraint, you use ALTER TABLE ADD CHECK statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ADD CHECK expression;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Generailly, to add a constraint to a table, you use ALTER TABLE ADD CONSTRAINT statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ADD CONSTRAINT constraint_name constraint_definition;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To rename a table you use ALTER TABLE RENAME TO statement:

ALTER TABLE table_name

RENAME TO new_table_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Introduction to PostgreSQL INSERT statement

The PostgreSQL INSERT statement allows you to insert a new row into a table.

The following illustrates the most basic syntax of the INSERT statement:

INSERT INTO table_name(column1, column2, …)

VALUES (value1, value2, …);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this syntax:

• First, specify the name of the table (table_name) that you want to insert data after
the INSERT INTO keywords and a list of comma-separated columns (colum1,
column2, ....).

• Second, supply a list of comma-separated values in a parentheses (value1, value2,

...) after the VALUES keyword. The columns and values in the column and value lists
must be in the same order.

The INSERT statement returns a command tag with the following form:

INSERT oid count

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

OID is an object identifier. PostgreSQL used the OID internally as a primary key for its
system tables. Typically, the INSERT statement returns OID with value 0. The count is the
number of rows that the INSERT statement inserted successfully.

RETURNING clause

The INSERT statement also has an optional RETURNING clause that returns the information
of the inserted row.

If you want to return the entire inserted row, you use an asterisk (*) after
the RETURNING keyword:

INSERT INTO table_name(column1, column2, …)

VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING *;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

If you want to return just some information of the inserted row, you can specify one or more
columns after the RETURNING clause.

For example, the following statement returns the id of the inserted row:

INSERT INTO table_name(column1, column2, …)

VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING id;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To rename the returned value, you use the AS keyword followed by the name of the output.
For example:

INSERT INTO table_name(column1, column2, …)

VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING output_expression AS output_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)
PostgreSQL INSERT statement examples

The following statement creates a new table calledlinksfor the demonstration:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS links;

CREATE TABLE links (

id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
url VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
description VARCHAR (255),
last_update DATE
);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

Note that you will learn how to create a new table in the subsequent tutorial. In this tutorial,
you just need to execute it to create a new table.

1) PostgreSQL INSERT – Inserting a single row into a table

The following statement inserts a new row into the links table:

INSERT INTO links (url, name)

VALUES('https://www.postgresqltutorial.com','PostgreSQL Tutorial');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The statement returns the following output:

INSERT 0 1
Code language: Shell Session (shell)

To insert character data, you enclose it in single quotes (‘) for example 'PostgreSQL Tutorial'.

If you omit required columns in the INSERT statement, PostgreSQL will issue an error. In
case you omit an optional column, PostgreSQL will use the column default value for insert.

In this example, the description is an optional column because it doesn’t have a NOT
NULL constraint. Therefore, PostgreSQL uses NULL to insert into the description column.

PostgreSQL automatically generates a sequential number for the serial column so you do not
have to supply a value for the serial column in the INSERT statement.

The following SELECT statement shows the contents of the links table:

SELECT * FROM links;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

2) PostgreSQL INSERT – Inserting character string that contains a single quote

If you want to insert a string that contains a single quote (') such as O'Reilly Media, you have
to use an additional single quote (') to escape it. For example:

INSERT INTO links (url, name)

VALUES('http://www.oreilly.com','O''Reilly Media');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Output:

INSERT 0 1

The following statement verifies the insert:

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

3) PostgreSQL INSERT – Inserting a date value

To insert a date value into a column with the DATE type, you use the date in the
format 'YYYY-MM-DD'.

The following statement inserts a new row with a specified date into the links table:

INSERT INTO links (url, name, last_update)

VALUES('https://www.google.com','Google','2013-06-01');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Output:

INSERT 0 1
4) PostgreSQL INSERT- Getting the last insert id

To get the last insert id from inserted row, you use the RETURNING clause of
the INSERTstatement.

For example, the following statement inserts a new row into the links table and returns the last
insert id:

INSERT INTO links (url, name)

VALUES('http://www.postgresql.org','PostgreSQL')
RETURNING id;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Output:

PostgreSQL ALTER TABLE examples

Let’s create a new table calledlinks for practicing with the ALTER TABLE statement.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS links;

CREATE TABLE links (

link_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR (512) NOT NULL,
url VARCHAR (1024) NOT NULL
);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

To add a new column named active, you use the following statement:

ALTER TABLE links

ADD COLUMN active boolean;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement removes the activecolumn from the linkstable:

ALTER TABLE links

DROP COLUMN active;

To change the name of the title column to link_title, you use the following statement:

ALTER TABLE links

RENAME COLUMN title TO link_title;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement adds a new column named target to the links table:

ALTER TABLE links

ADD COLUMN target VARCHAR(10);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

To set _blank as the default value for the target column in the links table, you use the following
statement:

ALTER TABLE links

ALTER COLUMN target
SET DEFAULT '_blank';
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

If you insert the new row into the links table without specifying a value for the target column,
the target column will take the _blank as the default value. For example:

INSERT INTO links (link_title, url)

VALUES('PostgreSQL Tutorial','https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement selects data from the links table:

SELECT * FROM links;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement adds a CHECKcondition to the targetcolumn so that the targetcolumn
only accepts the following values: _self, _blank, _parent, and _top:

ALTER TABLE links

ADD CHECK (target IN ('_self', '_blank', '_parent', '_top'));
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

If you attempt to insert a new row that violates the CHECK constraint set for the targetcolumn,
PostgreSQL will issue an error as shown in the following example:

INSERT INTO links(link_title,url,target)

VALUES('PostgreSQL','http://www.postgresql.org/','whatever');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)
ERROR: new row for relation "links" violates check constraint "links_target_check"
DETAIL: Failing row contains (2, PostgreSQL, http://www.postgresql.org/,
whatever).DETAIL: Failing row contains (2, PostgreSQL, http://www.postgresql.org/,
whatever).
Code language: Shell Session (shell)

The following statement adds a UNIQUE constraint to the url column of the links table:

ALTER TABLE links

ADD CONSTRAINT unique_url UNIQUE ( url );
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement attempts to insert the url that already exists:

INSERT INTO links(link_title,url)

VALUES('PostgreSQL','https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/');
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

It causes an error due to the unique_url constraint:

ERROR: duplicate key value violates unique constraint "unique_url"

DETAIL: Key (url)=(https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/) already exists.
Code language: Shell Session (shell)

The following statement changes the name of the links table to urls:

ALTER TABLE links

RENAME TO urls;

PostgreSQL DROP TABLE

To drop a table from the database, you use the DROP TABLE statement as follows:

DROP TABLE [IF EXISTS] table_name

[CASCADE | RESTRICT];

In this syntax:

• First, specify the name of the table that you want to drop after the DROP
TABLE keywords.
• Second, use the IF EXISTS option to remove the table only if it exists.

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

If you remove a table that does not exist, PostgreSQL issues an error. To avoid this situation,
you can use the IF EXISTS option.

In case the table that you want to remove is used in other objects such as views, triggers,
functions, and stored procedures, the DROP TABLE cannot remove the table. In this case,
you have two options:

• The CASCADE option allows you to remove the table and its dependent objects.
• The RESTRICT option rejects the removal if there is any object depends on the table.
The RESTRICT option is the default if you don’t explicitly specify it in the DROP
TABLE statement.

To remove multiple tables at once, you can place a comma-separated list of tables after
the DROP TABLE keywords:

DROP TABLE [IF EXISTS]

table_name_1,
table_name_2,
...
[CASCADE | RESTRICT];
Code language: CSS (css)

Note that you need to have the roles of the superuser, schema owner, or table owner in order
to drop tables.

PostgreSQL DROP TABLE examples

Let’s take some examples of using the PostgreSQL DROP TABLE statement

1) Drop a table that does not exist

The following statement removes a table named authorin the database:

DROP TABLE author;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

PostgreSQL issues an error because the author table does not exist.

[Err] ERROR: table "author" does not exist

Code language: Shell Session (shell)

To avoid the error, you can use the IF EXISTS option like this.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS author;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)
NOTICE: table "author" does not exist, skipping DROP TABLE
Code language: Shell Session (shell)

As can be seen clearly from the output, PostgreSQL issued a notice instead of an error.

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

2) Drop a table that has dependent objects

The following creates new tables called authors and pages:

CREATE TABLE authors (

author_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
firstname VARCHAR (50),
lastname VARCHAR (50)
);

CREATE TABLE pages (

page_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR (255) NOT NULL,
contents TEXT,
author_id INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY (author_id)
REFERENCES authors (author_id)
);
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement uses the DROP TABLE to drop the authortable:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS authors;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Because the constraint on the page table depends on the authortable, PostgreSQL issues an
error message:

ERROR: cannot drop table authors because other objects depend on it

DETAIL: constraint pages_author_id_fkey on table pages depends on table authors
HINT: Use DROP ... CASCADE to drop the dependent objects too.
SQL state: 2BP01
Code language: Shell Session (shell)

In this case, you need to remove all dependent objects first before dropping the author table or
use CASCADE option as follows:

DROP TABLE authors CASCADE;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

PostgreSQL removes the authortable as well as the constraint in the page table.

If the DROP TABLE statement removes the dependent objects of the table that is being
dropped, it will issue a notice like this:

NOTICE: drop cascades to constraint pages_author_id_fkey on table pages

Code language: Shell Session (shell)
3) Drop multiple tables

The following statements create two tables for the demo purposes:

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

CREATE TABLE tvshows(

tvshow_id INT GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY,
title VARCHAR,
release_year SMALLINT,
PRIMARY KEY(tvshow_id)
);

CREATE TABLE animes(

anime_id INT GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY,
title VARCHAR,
release_year SMALLINT,
PRIMARY KEY(anime_id)
);
Code language: PHP (php)

The following example uses a single DROP TABLE statement to drop

the tvshows and animes tables:

DROP TABLE tvshows, animes;

PostgreSQL SELECT
One of the most common tasks, when you work with the database, is to query data from tables
by using the SELECT statement.

The SELECT statement is one of the most complex statements in PostgreSQL. It has many
clauses that you can use to form a flexible query.

Because of its complexity, we will break it down into many shorter and easy-to-understand
tutorials so that you can learn about each clause faster.

The SELECTstatement has the following clauses:

• Select distinct rows using DISTINCT operator.

• Sort rows usingORDER BY clause.
• Filter rows using WHERE clause.
• Select a subset of rows from a table using LIMIT or FETCH clause.
• Group rows into groups using GROUP BY clause.
• Filter groups using HAVING clause.
• Join with other tables using joins such as INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, FULL OUTER
JOIN, CROSS JOIN clauses.
• Perform set operations using UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT.

PostgreSQL SELECT statement syntax

Let’s start with the basic form of the SELECT statement that retrieves data from a single table.

The following illustrates the syntax of the SELECT statement:

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

SELECT
select_list
FROM
table_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Let’s examine the SELECTstatement in more detail:

• First, specify a select list that can be a column or a list of columns in a table from
which you want to retrieve data. If you specify a list of columns, you need to place a
comma (,) between two columns to separate them. If you want to select data from all
the columns of the table, you can use an asterisk (*) shorthand instead of specifying all
the column names. The select list may also contain expressions or literal values.
• Second, specify the name of the table from which you want to query data after
the FROM keyword.

The FROM clause is optional. If you do not query data from any table, you can omit
the FROM clause in the SELECT statement.

PostgreSQL evaluates the FROM clause before the SELECT clause in the SELECT statement:

Note that the SQL keywords are case-insensitive. It means that SELECT is equivalent
to select or Select. By convention, we will use all the SQL keywords in uppercase to make the
queries easier to read.

PostgreSQL SELECT examples

Let’s take a look at some examples of using PostgreSQL SELECT statement.

We will use the following customer table in the sample database for the demonstration.

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

1) Using PostgreSQL SELECT statement to query data from one column example

This example uses the SELECT statement to find the first names of all customers from
the customer table:

SELECT first_name FROM customer;

Here is the partial output:

Notice that we added a semicolon (;) at the end of the SELECT statement. The semicolon is not
a part of the SQL statement. It is used to signal PostgreSQL the end of an SQL statement. The
semicolon is also used to separate two SQL statements.

2) Using PostgreSQL SELECT statement to query data from multiple columns example

Suppose you just want to know the first name, last name and email of customers, you can
specify these column names in the SELECT clause as shown in the following query:

SELECT
first_name,
last_name,
email
FROM
customer;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

3) Using PostgreSQL SELECT statement to query data from all columns of a table
example

The following query uses the SELECT statement to select data from all columns of
the customer table:

SELECT * FROM customer;

Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this example, we used an asterisk (*) in the SELECT clause, which is a shorthand for all
columns. Instead of listing all columns in the SELECT clause, we just used the asterisk (*) to
save some typing.

However, it is not a good practice to use the asterisk (*) in the SELECT statement when you
embed SQL statements in the application code like Python, Java, Node.js, or PHP due to the
following reasons:

1. Database performance. Suppose you have a table with many columns and a lot of data,
the SELECT statement with the asterisk (*) shorthand will select data from all the
columns of the table, which may not be necessary to the application.
2. Application performance. Retrieving unnecessary data from the database increases the
traffic between the database server and application server. In consequence, your
applications may be slower to respond and less scalable.

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

Because of these reasons, it is a good practice to explicitly specify the column names in
the SELECT clause whenever possible to get only necessary data from the database.

And you should only use the asterisk (*) shorthand for the ad-hoc queries that examine data
from the database.

4) Using PostgreSQL SELECT statement with expressions example

The following example uses the SELECT statement to return full names and emails of all
customers:

SELECT
first_name || ' ' || last_name,
email
FROM
customer;

Output:

5) Using PostgreSQL SELECT statement with expressions example

The following example uses the SELECT statement with an expression. It omits
the FROM clause:

SELECT 5 * 3;

Here is the output:

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 CS232-L – LAB 1

Exercise:

Structure of employee Database:

1. From the following table return complete information about the employees.
emp_id | emp_name | job_name | manager_id | hire_date | salary | commission | dep_id
--------+----------+-----------+------------+------------+---------+------------+--------
68319 | KAYLING | PRESIDENT | | 1991-11-18 | 6000.00 | | 1001
66928 | BLAZE | MANAGER | 68319 | 1991-05-01 | 2750.00 | | 3001
67832 | CLARE | MANAGER | 68319 | 1991-06-09 | 2550.00 | | 1001
65646 | JONAS | MANAGER | 68319 | 1991-04-02 | 2957.00 | | 2001
67858 | SCARLET | ANALYST | 65646 | 1997-04-19 | 3100.00 | | 2001
69062 | FRANK | ANALYST | 65646 | 1991-12-03 | 3100.00 | | 2001
63679 | SANDRINE | CLERK | 69062 | 1990-12-18 | 900.00 | | 2001
64989 | ADELYN | SALESMAN | 66928 | 1991-02-20 | 1700.00 | 400.00 | 3001
65271 | WADE | SALESMAN | 66928 | 1991-02-22 | 1350.00 | 600.00 | 3001
66564 | MADDEN | SALESMAN | 66928 | 1991-09-28 | 1350.00 | 1500.00 | 3001
68454 | TUCKER | SALESMAN | 66928 | 1991-09-08 | 1600.00 | 0.00 | 3001
68736 | ADNRES | CLERK | 67858 | 1997-05-23 | 1200.00 | | 2001
69000 | JULIUS | CLERK | 66928 | 1991-12-03 | 1050.00 | | 3001
69324 | MARKER | CLERK | 67832 | 1992-01-23 | 1400.00 | | 1001
(14 rows)

1. Display all the data from the table employees.

2. Write a SQL query to find the salaries of all employees
3. Show the name and job of all employees.
4. Change the column ‘emp_id’ to ‘NO’ in the database.
5. Change the database name from employees to emp.

49