Data definition language - definition

 
<language, database> (DDL)
 
1. A language enabling the structure and instances of a
database to be defined in a human-, and machine-readable
form.
 
SQL contains DDL commands that can be used either
interactively, or within programming language source code,
to define databases and their components, e.g. CREATE and
DROP.
 
See also Data manipulation language (DML).
 
2. A specification language for databases, based on the
entity-relationship model.  It is used in the Eli
compiler-compiler to manage type definitions.
 
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(1999-04-26)