A view can be thought of as either a virtual table or a stored query. It enables you to partition the information horizontally or vertically from one or more tables. With a view, the users can see only the selected fields or selected rows.

A view can only be created in the current database. When a view is created, the name of the view is stored in the sysobjects table and the text of the CREATE VIEW statement is stored in syscomments table.

Creating Views

A view can be created using CREATE VIEW statement.

Syntax:

CREATE VIEW View_Name
AS
SELECT_statements

Example

CREATE VIEW vwEMP
AS
SELECT EMPFIRSTNAME,EMPLASTNAME
FROM EMP

Output

SELECT * FROM vwEMP

Alter Views

Alter view statement is used to change the definition of the view.

Example

ALTER VIEW vwEMP
AS
SELECT EMPFIRSTNAME,EMPLASTNAME,SALARY
FROM EMP

Output

SELECT * FROM vwEMP

Dropping Views

A view can be dropped using the DROP VIEW statement.

Syntax:

DROP VIEW View_Name

Example

DROP VIEW vwEMP