Surprises in SQL – State-of-the-art options in the standard query language
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In recent times, many developers have come to view SQL as inflexible and limited, but this classical database language has some tricks and special features that many users don't know about.
State-of-the-art SQL can do much more than you might think. Despite its popular image as a fairly limited database tool, SQL is no longer restricted to the relational data model but can also handle nested objects and structured documents, features more commonly associated with later technologies like NoSQL. Of course, it all depends on what you call SQL. Not all vendors implement all the features of the various SQL standards that have appeared through the years. In this article, I take you on a tour of some of interesting tricks available through standards-based SQL.
92 and 99
The SQL:92 standard is the starting point for the complete, classical SQL database system we think of today. SQL:92 was already the second major version of the SQL standard, and it achieved a certain level of completeness as an embodiment of the classic relational model. However, developers knew even back in 1992 that the relational model is not ideal for all data.
The third major version of the SQL standard in 1999 brought an end to the plain vanilla relational SQL. All signs pointed to object-oriented programming. The standard featured the concept of the object-relational database, but a couple of years too late as it turned out. Object-relational mappers (ORMs) had already begun to build a bridge between object-oriented programming and the relational data model.
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