UPDATE Command- SQL

Loosely speaking, UPDATE changes some of the column values of some existing rows of its target table. Thus, although some rows disappear from the target and others arrive in it, so to speak, the cardinality of the table does not change. Suppose the exam board for course C2 decides that the exam has been marked too harshly and everybody's mark is to be increased by 5. Example shows how.

Example: Adding 5 to all the marks for course C2

UPDATE EXAM_MARK SET Mark = Mark + 5

WHERE CourseId = 'C2';

The syntax is self-explanatory. The WHERE specification is optional and defaults to WHERE TRUE, meaning that the specified changes are to be applied to all existing rows in the target table. The expression Mark = Mark + 5 is a column assignment. When several column assignments are needed they are separated by commas and the semantics of multiple assignment as described in the theory book apply: the right-hand sides are all evaluated before any column assignments are performed. The same column cannot be the target or more than one assignment.