Structured Query Language (SQL) is a domain-specific programming language that is used for accessing, modifying and extracting data from relational databases. It enables data query, manipulation (such as insertion, deletion), definition (schema creation) and access control.
SQL was designed at IBM in the 1970s. In the 1980s, it became a standard query language. Its main advantage over older systems was that it introduced accessing many records with one command. Additionally, with SQL there was no longer a need to specify whether the record should be reached with or without an index. As of today, new versions of Structured Query Language are published every few years.
