SQL in a Nutshell

Name

CREATE TABLE

Synopsis

The CREATE TABLE statement does what it says: create a table. However, most vendors also allow a wide variety of other functions to be exercised through the CREATE TABLE statement, such as the assignment of keys, cascading referential integrity, constraints, and default values.

Vendor	Command
SQL Server	Supported, with variations
MySQL	Supported, with variations
Oracle	Supported, with variations
PostgreSQL	Supported, with variations

This command defines a table name, its constituent columns, and any properties to the columns and/or table. Typically, a great deal of consideration goes into the design and creation of a table. This discipline is known as database design . The discipline of analyzing the relationship of a table to its own data and to other tables within the database is known as normalization .

Tip

It is strongly recommended that programmers and developers study both database design and normalization principles thoroughly before issuing CREATE TABLE commands.

In general, the table name always starts with an alphabetic character. The allowable length of the name varies by vendor; Oracle allows only 30 characters, but it can be much bigger than 30 characters when necessary. Numbers may be used in the name of the table, but do not use any symbol other than the underscore ( _ ). Some vendors allow many other symbols in the name of a table, but it’s good practice not to use them since they can create confusing identifiers.

When defining ...