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It is a collection of character data in a database management system, usually stored in a separate location that is referenced in the table itself. Oracle and IBM Db2 provide a construct explicitly named CLOB, [1] [2] and the majority of other database systems support some form of the concept, often labeled as text, memo or long character fields.
Varchar fields can be of any size up to a limit, which varies by databases: an Oracle 11g database has a limit of 4000 bytes, [1] a MySQL 5.7 database has a limit of 65,535 bytes (for the entire row) [2] and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has a limit of 8000 bytes (unless varchar(max) is used, which has a maximum storage capacity of 2 gigabytes).
SQL includes operators and functions for calculating values on stored values. SQL allows the use of expressions in the select list to project data, as in the following example, which returns a list of books that cost more than 100.00 with an additional sales_tax column containing a sales tax figure calculated at 6% of the price.
SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce after learning about the relational model from Edgar F. Codd [12] in the early 1970s. [13] This version, initially called SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language), was designed to manipulate and retrieve data stored in IBM's original quasirelational database management system, System R, which a group at IBM San ...
In SQL, wildcard characters can be used in LIKE expressions; the percent sign % matches zero or more characters, and underscore _ a single character. Transact-SQL also supports square brackets ([and ]) to list sets and ranges of characters to match, a leading caret ^ negates the set and matches only a character not within the list.
An example of this behavior is given in the section analyzing the missing-value semantics of Nulls. The SQL COALESCE function or CASE expressions can be used to "simulate" Null equality in join criteria, and the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL predicates can be used in the join criteria as well. The following predicate tests for equality of the values ...
Note (1): Both function and procedure refer to internal routines written in SQL and/or procedural language like PL/SQL. External routine refers to the one written in the host languages, such as C, Java, Cobol, etc. " Stored procedure " is a commonly used term for these routine types.
The purpose of a PL/SQL function is generally used to compute and return a single value. This returned value may be a single scalar value (such as a number, date or character string) or a single collection (such as a nested table or array). User-defined functions supplement the built-in functions provided by Oracle Corporation. [6]