Overview

As you already know, SQL is a nonprocedural language. In the previous chapter, you learned how to create procedural programs using proprietary SQL procedural extensions. These programs (stored procedures, user-defined functions, triggers, etc.) are stored inside RDBMS. This approach, though very popular since the 1990s, was not the first attempt to empower SQL with procedural language capabilities. The idea of the embedded SQL arose long before the SQL procedural extensions were developed. It was introduced by IBM in the beginning of the 1980s and then implemented by many other SQL vendors. The dynamic SQL was the logical continuation of the embedded SQL principles that alleviated some limitations and inconveniences of the latter.