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Structured Query Language (SQL) is a language for describing and operating on relational databases. A relational database is a database that is capable of representing relationships between different sets of data.

SQL can be used to access and manipulate data in: MySQL, SQL Server, Access, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, and other database systems.

SQL is commonly used in one of two ways:

1. Directly operate on the database management system (DBMS), or

2. Operate on the database management system as part of a larger application

What Can SQL do?

SQL can perform a variety of database related operations, including:

- Executing queries (finding data)

- Retrieving data

- Inserting records

- Updating records

- Deleting records

- Creating new databases

- Creating new tables

- Creating stored procedures

- Creating views

- Setting permissions

What is a Database?

In general, a database consists of one or more tables. Each table is identified by a name and contain rows (also called records) and columns containing data.

SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard

To build a web site that shows data from a database, you will need:

- Using An RDBMS database program (i.e. MS Access, SQL Server, MySQL)

- Using a server-side scripting language, like PHP or ASP

- Using SQL to get the data you want

- Using HTMLand or CSS

Web Sites and SQL

Most modern websites make use of a RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) to manage their data. The data in the RDBMS is stored in database objects called tables. A table is a collection of related data entries and it consists of rows and columns.

In general, these websites need the following components:

- An RDBMS database program (i.e. MS Access, SQL Server, MySQL)

- A server-side scripting language, like PHP or ASP

- SQL

- HTML

- CSS