Using a query language in the Interactive Terminal Monitor, you can:

Data definition includes the creation of tables, views, and indexes. Views are virtual tables that provide alternative ways to access the data in database tables. Indexes contain keys to speed access to data in other tables. Data definition statements define the structure of data. For example, you can use query language statements in the Interactive Terminal Monitor to create a new table, naming its columns, and specifying the data type and length of each field. Or you can create a table based on an existing table, copying certain data from the old table into the new.

You can use the Interactive Terminal Monitor to manipulate data in the following ways:

These activities can be performed on one or more tables with a single statement. You can also perform global operations on a table. For example, you can add several rows of new data to a table at once, or you can update the value of a particular column in all the existing rows. In addition, you can perform computations on existing data. For example, you can add 15 percent to every employee's hourly rate.

You can narrow the scope of an update or retrieval, or any other function, to rows containing specific values in a column. You can also qualify the scope of a function with various operators and set functions. For example, you can retrieve records for employees whose names begin with S, display an average hourly rate for the employees of a certain manager, or add 15 percent to the hourly rates of everyone except managers.

For complete query language statement syntax and details of using a query language for data manipulation, see your query language reference guide.