CONFORMANCE TESTING FOR INTERMEDIATE SQL - 1992

ANSI HAS COMPLETED A NEW STANDARD FOR DATABASE LANGUAGE SQL, SQL - 1992. THIS STANDARD IS COMPOSED OF THREE LEVELS OF CONFORMACE, FULL SQL, INTERMEDIATE SQL, AND ENTRY SQL. ENTRY SQL IS A SLIGHTLY ENHANCED VERSION OF THE SQL - 1989 STANDARD. THE NIST HAS ACCEPTED THE ANSI SQL-1992 STANDARD WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS. THEY ALSO ADDED ANOTHER LEVEL, TRANSITIONAL SQL, BETWEEN INTERMEDIATE SQL AND ENTRY SQL. TO TEST RELATIONAL DATABASE IMPLEMENTATIONS FOR CONFORMANCE TO THE ANSI AND GOVERNEMENT STANDARDS, THE NIST CREATED THE SQL TEST SUITE. IT CONSISTS OF ELEVEN TEST SUITES INCLUDING SUITES FOR EMBEDDED SQL AND MODULE LANGUAGE FOR ADA, C, COBOL, FORTRAN AND PASCAL, AND A SEPARATE SUITE FOR INTERACTIVE SQL. CURRENTLY, THE NIST IS UPDATING THE SQL TEST SUITE TO THE ENTRY SQL STANDARD. THERE IS A NEED FOR TEST SUITES FOR INTERMEDIATE SQL AND FULL SQL (POSSIBLY ALSO TRANSITIONAL SQL). THIS PROPOSAL IS FOR AN INTERMEDIATE SQL TEST SUITE. IT WILL BE COMPOSED OF TWENTY-TWO TEST SUITES. THESE INCLUDE THE ELEVEN IN THE NIST SQL TEST SUITE, FOUR MORE FOR MUMPS AND PL/I, AND SEVEN TO TEST DYNAMIC SQL FOR EACH PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. THE INTERMEDIATE SQL TEST SUITE WILL BE FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH THE ENTRY SQL TEST SUITE.