CS 272 Software Development

CS 272-03 • Fall 2022

SQL Demo: Creating Tables

First, we should figure out what tables we need. In the table above, note the following:

  • Every professor has a first and last name, but not all professors have a middle name.
  • Every professor has a unique email address based off their USF username. This means we can use this username as a primary key for each professor. (This might not be space efficient, however, if we expect this primary key to be repeated in multiple tables.)
  • Only some professors have Twitter accounts. Each Twitter account is unique.
  • Each professor teaches a different number of undergraduate courses.

We do not want to overcomplicate things by creating too many tables, but we also do not want a lot of wasted space in each table. We will strike this balance as follows:

  • For columns that have one-to-many relationships, like courses, we will create separate tables.

  • For columns that have one-to-one relationships where the columns are likely to be non-empty, like first name, last name, and username, we will keep them in the same table.

  • For columns that have a one-to-one relationship where the columns are likely to be empty, like Twitter username and middle name, we will demonstrate the two options: keeping middle name in the same table, but splitting Twitter usernames to a separate table.

We will need to setup some relationships for these tables, namely that the Twitter and courses tables refer to professors that already exist in the faculty table.

Create Faculty Table

We will create a faculty_names table with 1 row per professor that stores:

  • The USF username (named usfid), which must be unique, may not be null, and can be used as the primary key for this table and the foreign key for other tables.

  • The first, middle, and last names in separate columns. The middle name may be null. None of these columns need to be unique. For example, more than one person has the first name David in the department.

Exercise: See if you can create a faculty_names table that will match the following:

Field Type Null Key Default Extra
usfid char(20) NO PRI NULL  
first varchar(20) NO   NULL  
middle varchar(20) YES   NULL  
last varchar(20) NO   NULL  
See Answer.
CREATE TABLE faculty_names (
  usfid   CHAR(20)    NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  first   VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL,
  middle  VARCHAR(20),
  last    VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL
);


Once you have the table created, you can insert values as follows:

INSERT INTO faculty_names
(usfid, first, middle, last)
VALUES
('apjoshi',         'Alark',       NULL, 'Joshi'   ),
('benson',          'Greg',        NULL, 'Benson'  ),
('byuksel',         'Beste',       NULL, 'Yuksel'  ),
('cbrooks',         'Christopher', NULL, 'Brooks'  ),
('dgbrizan',        'David',      'Guy', 'Brizan'  ),
('ejung2',          'EJ',          NULL, 'Jung'    ),
('jajohnson9',      'Jeffrey',     NULL, 'Johnson' ),
('memre',           'Mehmet',      NULL, 'Emre'    ),
('mkremer',         'Michael',     NULL, 'Kremer'  ),
('mmalensek',       'Matthew',     NULL, 'Malensek'),
('okarpenko',       'Olga',        NULL, 'Karpenko'),
('phpeterson',      'Phil',        NULL, 'Peterson'),
('sjengle',         'Sophie',      NULL, 'Engle'   ),
('vpournaghshband', 'Vahab',       NULL, 'Pournaghshband'),
('wolberd',         'David',       NULL, 'Wolber'  );

Create the Twitter Table

We will create a faculty_twitter table that tracks Twitter accounts for professors that stores:

  • The Twitter account (named twitterid) which must not be null, must be unique, and may be used as the primary key for this table.

  • The ID for the professor this Twitter account belongs to, which must not be null. This should reference the usfid primary key in the faculty_names table.

Exercise: See if you can create a faculty_twitter table that will match the following:

Field Type Null Key Default Extra
twitterid char(15) NO PRI NULL  
usfid char(20) NO MUL NULL  
See Answer.
CREATE TABLE faculty_twitter (
  twitterid   CHAR(15) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  usfid       CHAR(20) NOT NULL,
  FOREIGN KEY (usfid)
  REFERENCES  faculty_names (usfid)
);


Once you have the table created, you can insert values as follows:

INSERT INTO faculty_twitter
(usfid, twitterid)
VALUES
('apjoshi',   'alark'),
('benson',    'gregorydbenson'),
('byuksel',   'BesteFYuksel'),
('dgbrizan',  'davidguybrizan'),
('mmalensek', 'MatthewMalensek'),
('sjengle',   'sjengle'),
('wolberd',   'wolberd');

Create the Courses Table

We will create a faculty_courses table that tracks the undergraduate courses that professors have taught recently. Since courses will not be unique in the same way as Twitter accounts or USF usernames, we need a separate primary key:

  • The course ID (named courseid) which must not be null, must be unique, and is an auto-incremented primary key.

  • The ID for the professor that taught this course, which must not be null. This should reference the usfid primary key in the faculty_names table.

  • The course number (named course) to identify the course taught by this professor (e.g. CS 212).

Exercise: See if you can create a faculty_courses table that will match the following:

See Answer.
CREATE TABLE faculty_courses (
  courseid INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  usfid    CHAR(20) NOT NULL,
  course   CHAR(10) NOT NULL,
  FOREIGN KEY (usfid)
  REFERENCES  faculty_names (usfid)
);


Once you have the table created, you can insert values as follows:

INSERT INTO faculty_courses
(usfid, course)
VALUES
('apjoshi',    'CS 110'),
('apjoshi',    'CS 112'),
('apjoshi',    'CS 360'),
('benson',     'CS 315'),
('benson',     'CS 326'),
('byuksel',    'CS 107'),
('byuksel',    'CS 110'),
('byuksel',    'CS 490'),
('cbrooks',    'CS 462'),
('dgbrizan',   'CS 245'),
('dgbrizan',   'CS 463'),
('ejung2',     'CS 112'),
('ejung2',     'CS 245'),
('jajohnson9', 'CS 107'),
('jajohnson9', 'CS 110'),
('jajohnson9', 'CS 490'),
('memre',      'CS 345'),
('mkremer',    'CS 110'),
('mmalensek',  'CS 220'),
('mmalensek',  'CS 326'),
('okarpenko',  'CS 112'),
('okarpenko',  'CS 245'),
('okarpenko',  'CS 272'),
('okarpenko',  'CS 490'),
('phpeterson', 'CS 221'),
('phpeterson', 'CS 315'),
('sjengle',    'CS 272'),
('sjengle',    'CS 360'),
('vpournaghshband', 'CS 221'),
('vpournaghshband', 'CS 336'),
('wolberd',    'CS 107'),
('wolberd',    'CS 110'),
('wolberd',    'CS 112');

Next: Selecting Data