SQL Create

Most database systems provide a way for you to create database objects via a WYSIWYG interface. For example, Microsoft's SQL Server has Enterprise Manager. The Enterprise Manager gives you a kind of graphical representation of your database system. You can browse through your databases, view the tables and their contents etc.

Despite having a tool like Enterprise Manager to make these tasks easier, there can be good reasons for wanting to perform some of these tasks programatically. Possible reasons could include:

• Your application allows users to create objects on the fly.
• You have multiple environments (for example development, staging, production). It's much easier, and less error prone, to run a script against 3 environments than to open up Enterprise Manager and repeat the steps in 3 environments - especially if you have lots of changes.
• You don't have access to Enterprise Manager (or your database system's equivalent).

Fortunately, SQL has a number of CREATE commands that enable you to programatically create database objects including the database, its tables and more.

Here are the CREATE commands supported by SQL Server:

• CREATE ACTION
• CREATE CACHE
• CREATE CELL CALCULATION
• CREATE CUBE
• CREATE DATABASE
• CREATE DEFAULT
• CREATE FUNCTION
• CREATE INDEX
• CREATE MEMBER
• CREATE MINING MODEL
• CREATE PROCEDURE
• CREATE RULE
• CREATE SCHEMA
• CREATE SET
• CREATE STATISTICS
• CREATE TABLE
• CREATE TRIGGER
• CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX
• CREATE VIEW

We're not going to cover all these here but, over the next few lessons, we'll cover some of the most common CREATE commands.

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