Synonyms
Schema definition language
Definition
A DDL is the part of a database language that includes the language constructs to create a database schema in the data model used by a particular database management system (DBMS). For example, in the SQL language for relational databases, the CREATE statement is the main part of the SQL DDL. CREATE can be used to CREATE TABLE (used to create a description of a table’s schema), CREATE TYPE (used to create an abstract data type that can be used as a data type for attributes or for table definitions), CREATE CONSTRAINT (used to create constraints on tables), CREATE DOMAIN (used to create a data type), and so on. For XML, the DDL can be written in a couple of languages including the XML Schema language and the XML DTD (Data Type Definition) language. In object databases, a language called ODL (Object Definition Language) is used as the DDL in the object database standard. Each DBMS will have a DDL to create the schema in the data model of the...
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Elmasri R, Navathe S. Fundamentals of database systems. 7th ed. Pearson; 2016.
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Elmasri, R. (2018). Data Definition Language (DDL). In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_80653
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_80653
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