Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours, Second Edition

Overview of Data Manipulation

Data Manipulation Language (DML) is the part of SQL that allows a database user to actually propagate changes among data in a relational database. With DML, the user can populate tables with new data, update existing data in tables, and delete data from tables. Simple database queries can also be performed within a DML command.

There are three basic DML commands in SQL:

INSERT

UPDATE

DELETE
					

The SELECT command, which can be used with DML commands, is discussed in more detail in Hour 7, "Introduction to the Database Query."