Is SQL or even TSQL Turing Complete?

https://web.archive.org/web/20110807062050/http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/TechOff/431432-SQL-Turing-Completeness-question

Is a discussion of this topic. A quote:

SQL as such (i.e. the SQL92 standard) is not turing complete. However, many of the languages derived from SQL, such as Oracle's PL/SQL and SQL Server's T-SQL and others are turing complete.

PL/SQL and T-SQL certainly qualify as programming languages, whether SQL92 itself qualifies is open for debate. Some people claim that any piece of code that tells a computer what to do qualifies as a programming language; by that definition SQL92 is one, but so is e.g. HTML. The definition is rather vague, and it's imo a pointless thing to argue about.

It turns out that SQL can be Turing Complete even without a true 'scripting' extension such as PL/SQL or PSM (which are designed to be true programming languages, so that's kinda cheating).

In this set of slides Andrew Gierth proves that with CTE and Windowing SQL is Turing Complete, by constructing a cyclic tag system, which has been proved to be Turing Complete. The CTE feature is the important part however -- it allows you to create named sub-expressions that can refer to themselves, and thereby recursively solve problems.

The interesting thing to note is that CTE was not really added to turn SQL into a programming language -- just to turn a declarative querying language into a more powerful declarative querying language. Sort of like in C++, whose templates turned out to be Turing complete even though they weren't intended to create a meta programming language.

Oh, the Mandelbrot set in SQL example is very impressive, as well :)

A given programming language is said to be Turing-complete if it can be shown that it is computationally equivalent to a Turing machine.

The TSQL is Turing Complete because we can make a BrainFuck interpreter in TSQL.

BrainFuck interpreter in SQL - GitHub

The provided code works in-memory and doesn't modify a database.

-- Brain Fuck interpreter in SQL

DECLARE @Code  VARCHAR(MAX) = ', [>,] < [.<]'
DECLARE @Input VARCHAR(MAX) = '!dlroW olleH';

-- Creates a "BrainFuck" DataBase.
-- CREATE DATABASE BrainFuck;

-- Creates the Source code table
DECLARE @CodeTable TABLE (
    [Id]      INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
    [Command] CHAR(1) NOT NULL
);

-- Populate the source code into CodeTable
DECLARE @CodeLen INT = LEN(@Code);
DECLARE @CodePos INT = 0;
DECLARE @CodeChar CHAR(1);

WHILE @CodePos < @CodeLen
BEGIN
    SET @CodePos  = @CodePos + 1;
    SET @CodeChar = SUBSTRING(@Code, @CodePos, 1);
    IF @CodeChar IN ('+', '-', '>', '<', ',', '.', '[', ']')
        INSERT INTO @CodeTable ([Command]) VALUES (@CodeChar)
END

-- Creates the Input table
DECLARE @InputTable TABLE (
    [Id]   INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
    [Char] CHAR(1) NOT NULL
);

-- Populate the input text into InputTable
DECLARE @InputLen INT = LEN(@Input);
DECLARE @InputPos INT = 0;

WHILE @InputPos < @InputLen
BEGIN
    SET @InputPos = @InputPos + 1;
    INSERT INTO @InputTable ([Char])
    VALUES (SUBSTRING(@Input, @InputPos, 1))
END

-- Creates the Output table
DECLARE @OutputTable TABLE (
    [Id]   INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
    [Char] CHAR(1) NOT NULL
);

-- Creates the Buffer table
DECLARE @BufferTable TABLE (
    [Id]     INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
    [Memory] INT DEFAULT 0  NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO @BufferTable ([Memory])
VALUES (0);

-- Initialization of temporary variables 
DECLARE @CodeLength INT = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM @CodeTable);
DECLARE @CodeIndex  INT = 0;
DECLARE @Pointer    INT = 1;
DECLARE @InputIndex INT = 0;
DECLARE @Command    CHAR(1);
DECLARE @Depth      INT;

-- Main calculation cycle
WHILE @CodeIndex < @CodeLength
BEGIN
    -- Read the next command.
    SET @CodeIndex = @CodeIndex + 1;
    SET @Command = (SELECT [Command] FROM @CodeTable WHERE [Id] = @CodeIndex);

    -- Increment the pointer.
    IF @Command = '>'
    BEGIN
        SET @Pointer = @Pointer + 1;
        IF (SELECT [Id] FROM @BufferTable WHERE [Id] = @Pointer) IS NULL
            INSERT INTO @BufferTable ([Memory]) VALUES (0);
    END

    -- Decrement the pointer.
    ELSE IF @Command = '<'
        SET @Pointer = @Pointer - 1;

    -- Increment the byte at the pointer.
    ELSE IF @Command = '+'
        UPDATE @BufferTable SET [Memory] = [Memory] + 1 WHERE [Id] = @Pointer;

    -- Decrement the byte at the pointer.
    ELSE IF @Command = '-'
        UPDATE @BufferTable SET [Memory] = [Memory] - 1 WHERE [Id] = @Pointer;

    -- Output the byte at the pointer.
    ELSE IF @Command = '.'
        INSERT INTO @OutputTable ([Char]) (SELECT CHAR([Memory]) FROM @BufferTable WHERE [Id] = @Pointer);

    -- Input a byte and store it in the byte at the pointer.
    ELSE IF @Command = ','
    BEGIN
        SET @InputIndex = @InputIndex + 1;
        UPDATE @BufferTable SET [Memory] = COALESCE((SELECT ASCII([Char]) FROM @InputTable WHERE [Id] = @InputIndex), 0) WHERE [Id] = @Pointer;
    END

    -- Jump forward past the matching ] if the byte at the pointer is zero.
    ELSE IF @Command = '[' AND COALESCE((SELECT [Memory] FROM @BufferTable WHERE [Id] = @Pointer), 0) = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Depth = 1;
        WHILE @Depth > 0
        BEGIN
            SET @CodeIndex = @CodeIndex + 1;
            SET @Command = (SELECT [Command] FROM @CodeTable WHERE [Id] = @CodeIndex);
            IF @Command = '[' SET @Depth = @Depth + 1;
            ELSE IF @Command = ']' SET @Depth = @Depth - 1;
        END
    END

    -- Jump backwards to the matching [ unless the byte at the pointer is zero.
    ELSE IF @Command = ']' AND COALESCE((SELECT [Memory] FROM @BufferTable WHERE [Id] = @Pointer), 0) != 0
    BEGIN
        SET @Depth = 1;
        WHILE @Depth > 0
        BEGIN
            SET @CodeIndex = @CodeIndex - 1;
            SET @Command = (SELECT [Command] FROM @CodeTable WHERE [Id] = @CodeIndex);
            IF @Command = ']' SET @Depth = @Depth + 1;
            ELSE IF @Command = '[' SET @Depth = @Depth - 1;
        END
    END
END;

-- Collects and prints the output
DECLARE @Output VARCHAR(MAX);
SELECT @Output = COALESCE(@Output, '') + [Char]
FROM @OutputTable;

PRINT @Output;
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