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.
