Lecture Notes: Databases and SQL

Though the text discusses use of SQL on paper, using the example databases from that chapter, we will base most of our exploration on a series of databases which we can query on the web at sqlzoo.net.

For consistency we ask that you use the "Oracle" database engine, which can be selected from the pulldown menu near the top-right corner of all sqlzoo pages (the syntax varies slightly between database engines and the dataset may very on the different servers for this site).

There are two separate databases that we will rely upon. One dataset involves information about countries, taken from the BBC Country Profiles. The other dataset involves movies, taken from the Internet Movie Datatbase (IMDB). In class, we handed out a brief summary of those database schemas.

Practice using the BBC country database from sqlzoo.net.

Here is a brief overview of the table's contents.
Here are some sample queries (answers are embedded)
Here is the tutorial
Here are sample answers to the tutorial.

Practice using the Movie database from sqlzoo.net.

Here is an overview of the table's contents.
Here are some sample queries involving joins (answers embedded).
Do queries 1a-1b, 2a-2c, and 3a-3e of the tutorial.
Here are sample answers to the tutorial.

Last modified: Thursday, 15 November 2007