Data manipulation language

In SQL, the data manipulation language comprises the SQL-data change statements, rather than the data stored within them, is considered to be part of a separate data definition language (DDL). In SQL these two categories are similar in their detailed syntax, data types, expressions etc., but distinct in their overall function. so the DML consists of all SQL-data statements, not only the SQL-data change statements. The SELECT ... INTO ... form combines both selection and manipulation, and thus is strictly considered to be DML because it manipulates (i.e. modifies) data. Data manipulation languages have their functional capability organized by the initial word in a statement, which is almost always a verb. In the case of SQL, these verbs are: • SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE ... (strictly speaking DQL) • SELECT ... INTO ... • INSERT INTO ... VALUES ... • UPDATE ... SET ... WHERE ... • DELETE FROM ... WHERE ... For example, the command to insert a row into table employees: INSERT INTO employees (first_name, last_name, fname) VALUES ('John', 'Capita', 'xcapit00'); ==Variants==

Most SQL database implementations extend their SQL capabilities by providing imperative, i.e. procedural languages. Examples of these are Oracle's PL/SQL and IBM Db2's SQL_PL. Data manipulation languages tend to have many different flavors and capabilities between database vendors. There have been a number of standards established for SQL by ANSI, but vendors still provide their own extensions to the standard while not implementing the entire standard. Data manipulation languages are divided into two types, procedural programming and declarative programming. Data manipulation languages were initially only used within computer programs, but with the advent of SQL have come to be used interactively by database administrators. ==See also==