12.3. SQL: Historical and Structural Overview

The rest of the chapter focuses on SQL. A full coverage would require a large book itself, so many advanced features of the language are omitted. The treatment assumes familiarity with relational schemas and the main operations of relational algebra, as discussed earlier. This section provides a brief history and structural overview of SQL.

After the publication of Dr. Codd’s classic paper on the relational model of data (Codd 1970), some early prototypes were developed to provide a relational DBMS, including a language for querying and updating relational databases. In 1974, Don Chamberlin and Raymond Boyce published a paper on a language called “SEQUEL” (Structured English Query Language) being ...

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