What is SQL? SQL is a standard computer language for accessing and manipulating databases.

SQL Key Points

* SQL stands for "Structured Query Language"
* An easy to learn programming language
* SQL allows you to access databases
* SQL is an ANSI standard computer programming language
* SQL executes queries into a database
* Insert records into a database
* Retrieve records from a database
* Update records from a database
* Delete records from a database

SQL is an ANSI (ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute )standard computer language for accessing and manipulating database systems. SQL statements are used to retrieve and update data in a database. Some programs like MS Access, DB2, Informix, MS SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, MYSQL works SQL databases.

While there are different versions of SQL, they all must be in complaince with the ANSI standards. All versions must support the same major keywords in a similar way, for example, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, INSERT, WHERE, FROM etc... Some of the SQL dabatbases also have their own proprietary extenstion in addition to the SQL standards.