Definition: SQL

(Structured Query Language) Typically pronounced "see-quill" rather than the acronym, SQL is a language used to interrogate and process data in a relational database. Originally developed by IBM for its mainframes, SQL commands can be used to interactively work with a database or can be embedded within a script or programming language to interface to a database. Programming extensions to SQL have turned it into a full-blown database programming language, and all major database management systems (DBMSs) support it.

ANSI standardized SQL, but most DBMSs have some proprietary enhancement, which if used, makes SQL non-standard. Moving an application from one SQL database to another sometimes requires tweaking, the age old problem in this business! See MySQL, SQLite, MDX, CLI, ODBC, IDAPI and SQL injection.

The following SQL query selects customers with credit limits of at least $5,000 and puts them into sequence from highest credit limit to lowest. The blue words are SQL verbs. See SPUFI.

     select name, city, state, zipcode
     from customer
     where creditlimit > 4999
     order by creditlimit desc

From Natural Language to SQL

English Wizard generated the SQL code at the bottom from the English sentence at the top. A lot of SQL code is required to ask a simple question. (Screenshot courtesy of EasyAsk Inc.)