SQL—A Query Language
Most DBI drivers require applications to use a dialect of SQL (Structured Query Language) to interact with the database engine. The following URLs provide useful information and further links about SQL:
http://www.altavista.com/query?q=sql+tutorial |
http://www.jcc.com/sql_stnd.html |
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql.html |
The DBI itself does not mandate or require any particular language to
be used; it is language-independent. In ODBC terms, the DBI is in
“pass-thru” mode, although individual drivers might not
be. The only requirement is that queries and other statements must be
expressed as a single string of characters passed as the first
argument to the prepare
or do
methods.
For an interesting diversion on the real history of RDBMS and SQL, from the people who made it happen, see:
http://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/SRC/technical-notes/SRC-1997-018-html/sqlr95.html |
Follow the “And the rest” and “Intergalactic dataspeak” links for the SQL history.
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