stands for S tructured Q uery L anguage. lets you access and manipulate databases. it is an ANSI (American National Standard Institute) standard. SQL can do execute queries against a database, retrieve data from a database, insert data in database, update data in a database, delete records from a database, create new databases, create new tables in a database, create stored procedure in a database, create a views in a database, set permissions on tables, procedures, and views SQL Commands : SELECT : extract data from a database UPDATE : updates data in a database DELETE : deletes data from a database INSERT INTO : inserts new data into a database CREATE DATABASE : create a database ALTER DATABASE : modifies a database CREATE TABLE : create a new table ALTER TABLE : modifies a table DROP TABLE : deletes a table CREATE INDEX : creates an index (search key) DROP INDEX : deletes an index