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Software Engineering vocabulary · Databases and Persistence

SQL

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˌɛs kjuː ˈɛl/abbreviationCore term

In software engineering, SQL means: Structured Query Language: the standard language used to create tables and to read, add, change and delete data in relational databases.

In Turkish: SQL, yapılandırılmış sorgu dili

How it is used

Used in job ads ('strong SQL skills'), interviews and daily work. People write SQL, run SQL, and talk about 'raw SQL' when they skip an ORM. Each product adds its own dialect, such as T-SQL (SQL Server) or PL/SQL (Oracle), on top of the standard.

Example sentences

  1. You don't need Python for this report; a few lines of SQL will do.

  2. Candidates take a one-hour SQL test before the technical interview.

Common collocations

  • write SQL
  • run a SQL query
  • raw SQL
  • SQL dialect
  • SQL skills
  • queryA request sent to a database to read or change data, usually written in SQL. As a verb, to query means to ask a database for data.
  • SELECT statementThe SQL statement that reads data from one or more tables and returns the matching rows without changing anything in the database.
  • relational databaseA type of database that stores data in tables made of rows and columns and links tables to each other through keys. Data is usually managed with SQL.
  • DDLData definition language: the SQL statements that create, change and remove database objects, such as CREATE, ALTER and DROP.
  • DMLData manipulation language: the SQL statements that work with the data inside tables, mainly INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and often SELECT.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Databases and Persistence

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