ISO/IEC 9075 defines the SQL language. The scope of the SQL language is the definition of data structure and the operations on data stored in that structure. ISO/IEC 9075-1:2008, ISO/IEC 9075-2:2008 and ISO/IEC 9075-11:2008 encompass the minimum requirements of the language. Other parts define extensions.

ISO/IEC 9075-2:2008 defines the data structures and basic operations on SQL-data. It provides functional capabilities for creating, accessing, maintaining, controlling, and protecting SQL-data. Both static and dynamic variants of the language are proved. In addition to direct invocation, bindings are provided for the programming languages Ada, C, COBOL, Fortran, M, Pascal, and PL/I.