Question

I understand that DML technically encompasses SQL verbs which merely query but do not modify persistent data. (See, e.g., wikipedia or oracle or orafaq)

However, I often wish to refer to “all and only those SQL verbs which modify stored/persistent data” — basically INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE but not a plain SELECT. Is there an official/standardized term, or, perhaps separately, a cogent and graceful term, for this subset of DML?

Answer 1

I don’t think there is one, sadly, from an official perspective. Perhaps we need to make one up?

Personally, I think the term DML is misleading because the term doesn’t really describe the way SELECT works, as it (usually) doesn’t actually modify anything. It only “collects” the relational data in a different fashion in temporary space and returns a specified set of it.

So, if it was my choice, I would say that:

DML would describe INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE

and

DRL (data retrieval language) would describe SELECT.