Understanding Queries

Query by example, usually abbreviated QBE, was originally developed to enable users of mainframe-computer database applications to find and display pieces of data (or collections of data) without having to know a computer language. Many database management systems eventually came to use QBE in one form or another. (In fact, dBASE, the first commercially successful PC database manager, used a variant of QBE for its dot-prompt commands.)

At a command prompt, for example, QBE users enter such statements as

      LIST ALL lastnames LIKE Lin* WITH state IL IN us_hist

These are known as give me an example of statements. The QBE application program then searched the lastnames field of the us_hist table file for all names beginning ...

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