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Oracle DBA FAQ - Understanding SQL DML Statements Home >> FAQs/Tutorials >> Oracle DBA FAQ >> Index Oracle DBA FAQ - Understanding SQL DML Statements By: FYIcenter.com Part: 1 2 3 A collection of 15 FAQs on Oracle SQL DML statements. Clear answers are provided with tutorial exercises on inserting, updating and deleting rows from database tables. Topics included in this FAQ are: What Are DML Statements? How To Create a Testing Table? How To Set Up SQL*Plus Output Format? How To Insert a New Row into a Table? How To Specify Default Values in INSERT Statement? How To Omit Columns with Default Values in INSERT Statement? How To Insert Multiple Rows with One INSERT Statement? How To Update Values in a Table? How To Update Values on Multiple Rows? How To Use Existing Values in UPDATE Statements? How To Use Values from Other Tables in UPDATE Statements? What Happens If the UPDATE Subquery Returns Multiple Rows? How To Delete an Existing Row from a Table? How To Delete Multiple Rows from a Table? How To Delete All Rows a Table? Sample scripts used in this FAQ assumes that you are connected to the server with the HR user account on the default database instance XE. See other FAQ collections on how to connect to the server. Some sample scripts requires database tables created by other samples in the beginning of the collection. What Are DML Statements? DML (Data Manipulation Language) statements are statements to change data values in database tables. The are 3 primary DML statements: INSERT - Inserting new rows into database tables. UPDATE - Updating existing rows in database tables . DELETE - Deleting existing rows from database tables. How To Create a Testing Table? If you want to practice DML statements, you should create a testing table as shown in the script below: CREATE TABLE fyi_links (id NUMBER(4) PRIMARY KEY, url VARCHAR2(80) NOT NULL, notes VARCHAR2(1024), counts NUMBER, created DATE DEFAULT (sysdate)); Table created. You should keep this table for to practice other tutorial exercises presented in this collection. How To Set Up SQL*Plus Output Format? If you want to practice SQL statements with SQL*Plus, you need to set up your SQL*Plus output formatting parameter properly. The following SQL*Plus commands shows you some examples: COLUMN id FORMAT 9999; COLUMN url FORMAT A24; COLUMN notes FORMAT A12; COLUMN counts FORMAT 999999; SET NULL 'NULL'; How To Insert a New Row into a Table? To insert a new row into a table, you should use the INSERT INTO statement with values specified for all columns as shown in the following example: INSERT INTO fyi_links VALUES (101, 'http://dev.fyicenter.com', NULL, 0, '30-Apr-2006'); 1 row created. SELECT * FROM fyi_links; ID URL NOTES COUNTS CREATED ----- ------------------------ -------- ------- --------- 101 http://dev.fyicenter.com NULL 0 30-Apr-06 How To Specify Default Values in INSERT Statement? If a column is defined with a default value in a table, you can use the key word DEFAULT in the INSERT statement to take the default value for that column. The following tutorial exercise gives a good example: INSERT INTO fyi_links VALUES (102, 'http://dba.fyicenter.com', NULL, 0, DEFAULT); 1 row created. SELECT * FROM fyi_links; ID URL NOTES COUNTS CREATED ----- ------------------------ -------- ------- --------- 101 http://dev.fyicenter.com NULL 0 30-Apr-06 102 http://dba.fyicenter.com NULL 0 07-MAY-06 (Continued on next part...) Part: 1 2 3 Selected Developer Jobs: More...