Chapter 13: Query Optimization

Introduction
• Alternative ways of evaluating a given query
– Equivalent expressions
– Different algorithms for each operation
 Introduction (Cont.)
• An evaluation plan defines exactly what algorithm is used for each
operation, and how the execution of the operations is coordinated.

■ Find out how to view query execution plans on your favorite database
 Introduction (Cont.)
■ Cost difference between evaluation plans for a query can be enormous
● E.g. seconds vs. days in some cases
■ Steps in cost-based query optimization
1. Generate logically equivalent expressions using equivalence rules
2. Annotate resultant expressions to get alternative query plans
3. Choose the cheapest plan based on estimated cost
■ Estimation of plan cost based on:
● Statistical information about relations. Examples:
 number of tuples, number of distinct values for an attribute
● Statistics estimation for intermediate results
 to compute cost of complex expressions
● Cost formulae for algorithms, computed using statistics
Generating Equivalent Expressions
 Transformation of Relational Expressions
• Two relational algebra expressions are said to be equivalent if the two
expressions generate the same set of tuples on every legal database
instance
– Note: order of tuples is irrelevant
– we don’t care if they generate different results on databases that violate
integrity constraints
• In SQL, inputs and outputs are multisets of tuples
– Two expressions in the multiset version of the relational algebra are said
to be equivalent if the two expressions generate the same multiset of
tuples on every legal database instance.
• An equivalence rule says that expressions of two forms are equivalent
– Can replace expression of first form by second, or vice versa
 Equivalence Rules
1. Conjunctive selection operations can be deconstructed into a sequence of
individual selections.
σ θ ∧θ ( E )=σ θ (σ θ (E ))
1 2 1 2
2. Selection operations are commutative.
σ θ (σ θ ( E ))=σ θ (σ θ ( E ))
1 2 2 1
3. Only the last in a sequence of projection operations is needed, the others
can be omitted.
Π L ( Π L (…( Π Ln ( E ))…))=Π L (E )
1 2 1
4. Selections can be combined with Cartesian products and theta joins.

α. σθ(E1 X E2) = E1 θ E2

β. σθ1(E1 θ2 E2) = E1 θ1∧ θ2 E2

 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
5. Theta-join operations (and natural joins) are commutative.
E1 θ E2 = E2 θ E1
6. (a) Natural join operations are associative:
(E1 E2) E3 = E1 (E2 E3)
(b) Theta joins are associative in the following manner:
(E1 θ1 E2) θ2∧ θ3 E3 = E1 θ1∧ θ3 (E2 θ2 E3)

where θ2 involves attributes from only E2 and E3.

Pictorial Depiction of Equivalence Rules
 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
7. The selection operation distributes over the theta join operation under the
following two conditions:
(a) When all the attributes in θ0 involve only the attributes of one
of the expressions (E1) being joined.
σθ0(E1 θ E2) = (σθ0(E1)) θ E2

(b) When θ 1 involves only the attributes of E1 and θ2 involves

only the attributes of E2.
σθ1∧θ2 (E1 θ E2) = (σθ1(E1)) θ (σθ2 (E2))
 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
8. The projection operation distributes over the theta join operation as follows:
(a) if θ involves only attributes from L1 ∪ L2:
∏ L1 ∪L2 ( E1 θ E2 ) = (∏ L1 ( E1 )) θ (∏ L2 ( E2 ))
(b) Consider a join E1 θ E2.
– Let L1 and L2 be sets of attributes from E1 and E2, respectively.
– Let L3 be attributes of E1 that are involved in join condition θ, but are not
in L1 ∪ L2, and
– let L4 be attributes of E2 that are involved in join condition θ, but are not
in L1 ∪ L2.

∏ L ∪ L ( E1
1 2 θ E2 ) = ∏ L ∪L ((∏ L ∪ L ( E1 ))
1 2 1 3 θ (∏ L ∪L ( E2 )))
2 4
 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
9. The set operations union and intersection are commutative
E1 ∪ E2 = E2 ∪ E1
E1 ∩ E2 = E2 ∩ E1
■ (set difference is not commutative).
10. Set union and intersection are associative.
(E1 ∪ E2) ∪ E3 = E1 ∪ (E2 ∪ E3)
(E1 ∩ E2) ∩ E3 = E1 ∩ (E2 ∩ E3)
11. The selection operation distributes over ∪, ∩ and –.
σθ (E1 – E2) = σθ (E1) – σθ(E2)
and similarly for ∪ and ∩ in place of –
Also: σθ (E1 – E2) = σθ(E1) – E2
and similarly for ∩ in place of –, but not for ∪
12. The projection operation distributes over union
ΠL(E1 ∪ E2) = (ΠL(E1)) ∪ (ΠL(E2))
 Transformation Example: Pushing Selections
• Query: Find the names of all instructors in the Music department, along with
the titles of the courses that they teach
– Πname, title(σdept_name= “Music”
(instructor (teaches Πcourse_id, title (course))))
• Transformation using rule 7a.

– Πname, title((σdept_name= “Music”(instructor))

(teaches Πcourse_id, title (course)))
• Performing the selection as early as possible reduces the size of the relation
to be joined.
 Example with Multiple Transformations
• Query: Find the names of all instructors in the Music department who
have taught a course in 2009, along with the titles of the courses that they
taught
– Πname, title(σdept_name= “Music”∧gear = 2009
(instructor (teaches Πcourse_id, title (course))))
• Transformation using join associatively (Rule 6a):

– Πname, title(σdept_name= “Music”∧gear = 2009

((instructor teaches) Πcourse_id, title (course)))

• Second form provides an opportunity to apply the “perform selections early”
rule, resulting in the subexpression
σdept_name = “Music” (instructor) σ year = 2009 (teaches)
Multiple Transformations (Cont.)
 Transformation Example: Pushing Projections
• Consider: Πname, title(σdept_name= “Music” (instructor) teaches)
Πcourse_id, title (course))))
• When we compute
(σdept_name = “Music” (instructor teaches)

we obtain a relation whose schema is:

(ID, name, dept_name, salary, course_id, sec_id, semester, year)
• Push projections using equivalence rules 8a and 8b; eliminate unneeded
attributes from intermediate results to get:
Πname, title(Πname, course_id (
σdept_name= “Music” (instructor) teaches))
Πcourse_id, title (course))))
• Performing the projection as early as possible reduces the size of the
relation to be joined.
 Join Ordering Example
• For all relations r1, r2, and r3,
(r1 r2) r3 = r1 (r2 r3 )
(Join Associativity)
• If r2 r3 is quite large and r1 r2 is small, we choose

(r1 r2) r3
so that we compute and store a smaller temporary relation.
 Join Ordering Example (Cont.)
• Consider the expression
Πname, title(σdept_name= “Music” (instructor) teaches)
Πcourse_id, title (course))))
• Could compute teaches Πcourse_id, title (course) first, and join result with
σdept_name= “Music” (instructor)
but the result of the first join is likely to be a large relation.
• Only a small fraction of the university’s instructors are likely to be from the
Music department
– it is better to compute
σdept_name= “Music” (instructor) teaches
first.
 Enumeration of Equivalent Expressions
• Query optimizers use equivalence rules to systematically
generate expressions equivalent to the given expression
• Can generate all equivalent expressions as follows:
– Repeat
• apply all applicable equivalence rules on every subexpression of every
equivalent expression found so far
• add newly generated expressions to the set of equivalent expressions
Until no new equivalent expressions are generated above
• The above approach is very expensive in space and time
– Two approaches
• Optimized plan generation based on transformation rules
• Special case approach for queries with only selections, projections and
joins
 Implementing Transformation Based Optimization
• Space requirements reduced by sharing common sub-expressions:
– when E1 is generated from E2 by an equivalence rule, usually only the top level of the two
are different, subtrees below are the same and can be shared using pointers
• E.g. when applying join commutativity

E1 E2

– Same sub-expression may get generated multiple times

• Detect duplicate sub-expressions and share one copy
• Time requirements are reduced by not generating all expressions
– Dynamic programming
• We will study only the special case of dynamic programming for join order optimization
 Cost Estimation
• Cost of each operator computer as described in Chapter 12
– Need statistics of input relations
• E.g. number of tuples, sizes of tuples
• Inputs can be results of sub-expressions
– Need to estimate statistics of expression results
– To do so, we require additional statistics
• E.g. number of distinct values for an attribute
• More on cost estimation later
 Choice of Evaluation Plans
• Must consider the interaction of evaluation techniques when
choosing evaluation plans
– choosing the cheapest algorithm for each operation independently
may not yield best overall algorithm. E.g.
• merge-join may be costlier than hash-join, but may provide a sorted output
which reduces the cost for an outer level aggregation.
• nested-loop join may provide opportunity for pipelining
• Practical query optimizers incorporate elements of the
following two broad approaches:
1. Search all the plans and choose the best plan in a
cost-based fashion.
2. Uses heuristics to choose a plan.
 Cost-Based Optimization
• Consider finding the best join-order for r1 r2 . . . rn.
• There are (2(n – 1))!/(n – 1)! different join orders for above
expression. With n = 7, the number is 665280, with n = 10,
the number is greater than 176 billion!
• No need to generate all the join orders. Using dynamic
programming, the least-cost join order for any subset of
{r1, r2, . . . rn} is computed only once and stored for future
use.
 Dynamic Programming in Optimization
• To find best join tree for a set of n relations:
– To find best plan for a set S of n relations, consider all possible
plans of the form: S1 (S – S1) where S1 is any non-empty subset
of S.
– Recursively compute costs for joining subsets of S to find the cost
of each plan. Choose the cheapest of the 2n – 2 alternatives.
– Base case for recursion: single relation access plan
• Apply all selections on Ri using best choice of indices on R i
– When plan for any subset is computed, store it and reuse it when it
is required again, instead of recomputing it
• Dynamic programming
 Join Order Optimization Algorithm
procedure findbestplan(S)
if (bestplan[S].cost ≠ ∞)
return bestplan[S]
// else bestplan[S] has not been computed earlier, compute it
now
if (S contains only 1 relation)
set bestplan[S].plan and bestplan[S].cost based on the
best way of accessing S
/* Using selections on S and indices on S */
else for each non-empty subset S1 of S such that S1 ≠ S
P1= findbestplan(S1)
P2= findbestplan(S - S1)
A = best algorithm for joining results of P1 and P2
cost = P1.cost + P2.cost + cost of A
if cost < bestplan[S].cost
bestplan[S].cost = cost
bestplan[S].plan = “execute P1.plan; execute
P2.plan; join results of P1 and P2 using A”
return bestplan[S]
 Left Deep Join Trees
• In left-deep join trees, the right-hand-side input for each
join is a relation, not the result of an intermediate join.
 Cost of Optimization
• With dynamic programming time complexity of optimization with
bushy trees is O(3n).
– With n = 10, this number is 59000 instead of 176 billion!
• Space complexity is O(2n)
• To find best left-deep join tree for a set of n relations:
– Consider n alternatives with one relation as right-hand side input
and the other relations as left-hand side input.
– Modify optimization algorithm:
• Replace “for each non-empty subset S1 of S such that S1 ≠ S”
• By: for each relation r in S
let S1 = S – r .
• If only left-deep trees are considered, time complexity of finding
best join order is O(n 2n)
– Space complexity remains at O(2n)
• Cost-based optimization is expensive, but worthwhile for
queries on large datasets (typical queries have small n,
generally < 10)
 Interesting Sort Orders
• Consider the expression (r1 r2) r3 (with A as common
attribute)
• An interesting sort order is a particular sort order of
tuples that could be useful for a later operation
– Using merge-join to compute r1 r2 may be costlier than hash
join but generates result sorted on A
– Which in turn may make merge-join with r3 cheaper, which may
reduce cost of join with r3 and minimizing overall cost
– Sort order may also be useful for order by and for grouping
• Not sufficient to find the best join order for each subset of
the set of n given relations
– must find the best join order for each subset, for each interesting
sort order
– Simple extension of earlier dynamic programming algorithms
– Usually, number of interesting orders is quite small and doesn’t
affect time/space complexity significantly
 Cost Based Optimization with Equivalence Rules
• Physical equivalence rules allow logical query plan to be
converted to physical query plan specifying what algorithms
are used for each operation.
• Efficient optimizer based on equivalent rules depends on
– A space efficient representation of expressions which avoids
making multiple copies of subexpressions
– Efficient techniques for detecting duplicate derivations of
expressions
– A form of dynamic programming based on memoization, which
stores the best plan for a subexpression the first time it is
optimized, and reuses in on repeated optimization calls on same
subexpression
– Cost-based pruning techniques that avoid generating all plans
• Pioneered by the Volcano project and implemented in the
SQL Server optimizer
 Heuristic Optimization
• Cost-based optimization is expensive, even with dynamic
programming.
• Systems may use heuristics to reduce the number of
choices that must be made in a cost-based fashion.
• Heuristic optimization transforms the query-tree by using a
set of rules that typically (but not in all cases) improve
execution performance:
– Perform selection early (reduces the number of tuples)
– Perform projection early (reduces the number of attributes)
– Perform most restrictive selection and join operations (i.e. with
smallest result size) before other similar operations.
– Some systems use only heuristics, others combine heuristics with
partial cost-based optimization.
 Structure of Query Optimizers
• Many optimizers considers only left-deep join orders.
– Plus heuristics to push selections and projections down the query
tree
– Reduces optimization complexity and generates plans amenable
to pipelined evaluation.
• Heuristic optimization used in some versions of Oracle:
– Repeatedly pick “best” relation to join next
• Starting from each of n starting points. Pick best among these
• Intricacies of SQL complicate query optimization
– E.g. nested subqueries
 Structure of Query Optimizers (Cont.)
• Some query optimizers integrate heuristic selection and the
generation of alternative access plans.
– Frequently used approach
• heuristic rewriting of nested block structure and aggregation
• followed by cost-based join-order optimization for each block
– Some optimizers (e.g. SQL Server) apply transformations to entire
query and do not depend on block structure
– Optimization cost budget to stop optimization early (if cost of
plan is less than cost of optimization)
– Plan caching to reuse previously computed plan if query is
resubmitted
• Even with different constants in query
• Even with the use of heuristics, cost-based query optimization
imposes a substantial overhead.
– But is worth it for expensive queries
– Optimizers often use simple heuristics for very cheap queries, and
perform exhaustive enumeration for more expensive queries
Statistics for Cost Estimation
 Statistical Information for Cost Estimation
• nr: number of tuples in a relation r.
• br: number of blocks containing tuples of r.
• lr: size of a tuple of r.
• fr: blocking factor of r — i.e., the number of tuples of r that fit
into one block.
• V(A, r): number of distinct values that appear in r for
attribute A; same as the size of ∏A(r).
• If tuples of r are stored together physically in a file, then:
nr
br=⌈ ⌉
fr
 Histograms
• Histogram on attribute age of relation person

• Equi-width histograms
• Equi-depth histograms
 Selection Size Estimation
• σA=v(r)
• nr / V(A,r) : number of records that will satisfy the selection
• Equality condition on a key attribute: size estimate = 1
• σA≤V(r) (case of σA ≥ V(r) is symmetric)
– Let c denote the estimated number of tuples satisfying the
condition.
– If min(A,r) and max(A,r) are available in catalog
• c = 0 if v < min(A,r)
v−min( A ,r )
• c= n.
r
max( A ,r)−min( A , r)
– If histograms available, can refine above estimate
– In absence of statistical information c is assumed to be nr / 2.
 Size Estimation of Complex Selections
• The selectivity of a condition θi is the probability that a tuple
in the relation r satisfies θi .
– If si is the number of satisfying tuples in r, the selectivity of θi is
given by si /nr.
• Conjunction: σθ1∧ θ2∧. . . ∧ θn (r). Assuming indepdence,
estimate of
s1∗s 2∗. . .∗s n
tuples in the result is: n r∗ n
nr
• Disjunction:σθ1∨ θ2 ∨. . . ∨ θn (r). Estimated number of tuples:

(
n r∗ 1−(1−
s1
nr
)∗(1−
s2
nr
)∗. . .∗(1−
sn
nr )
)

• Negation: σ¬θ(r). Estimated number of tuples:

nr – size(σθ(r))
 Join Operation: Running Example
Running example:
student takes
Catalog information for join examples:
• nstudent = 5,000.
• fstudent = 50, which implies that
bstudent =5000/50 = 100.
• ntakes = 10000.
• ftakes = 25, which implies that
btakes = 10000/25 = 400.
• V(ID, takes) = 2500, which implies that on average, each
student who has taken a course has taken 4 courses.
– Attribute ID in takes is a foreign key referencing student.
– V(ID, student) = 5000 (primary key!)
 Estimation of the Size of Joins
• The Cartesian product r x s contains nr .ns tuples; each
tuple occupies sr + ss bytes.
• If R ∩ S = ∅, then r s is the same as r x s.
• If R ∩ S is a key for R, then a tuple of s will join with at most
one tuple from r
– therefore, the number of tuples in r s is no greater than the
number of tuples in s.
• If R ∩ S in S is a foreign key in S referencing R, then the
number of tuples in r s is exactly the same as the number
of tuples in s.
• The case for R ∩ S being a foreign key referencing S is symmetric.
• In the example query student takes, ID in takes is a
foreign key referencing student
– hence, the result has exactly ntakes tuples, which is 10000
 Estimation of the Size of Joins (Cont.)
• If R ∩ S = {A} is not a key for R or S.
If we assume that every tuple t in R produces tuples in
R S, the number of tuples in R S is estimated to be:
nr∗n s
V ( A ,s)

If the reverse is true, the estimate obtained will be:

nr∗n s
V ( A ,r)

The lower of these two estimates is probably the more

accurate one.
• Can improve on above if histograms are available
– Use formula similar to above, for each cell of histograms on the
two relations
 Estimation of the Size of Joins (Cont.)
• Compute the size estimates for depositor customer
without using information about foreign keys:
– V(ID, takes) = 2500, and
V(ID, student) = 5000
– The two estimates are 5000 * 10000/2500 = 20,000 and 5000 *
10000/5000 = 10000
– We choose the lower estimate, which in this case, is the same as
our earlier computation using foreign keys.
 Size Estimation for Other Operations
• Projection: estimated size of ∏A(r) = V(A,r)
• Aggregation : estimated size of AgF(r) = V(A,r)
• Set operations
– For unions/intersections of selections on the same relation:
rewrite and use size estimate for selections
• E.g. σθ1 (r) ∪ σθ2 (r) can be rewritten as σθ1 σθ2 (r)
– For operations on different relations:
• estimated size of r ∪ s = size of r + size of s.
• estimated size of r ∩ s = minimum size of r and size of s.
• estimated size of r – s = r.
• All the three estimates may be quite inaccurate, but provide upper bounds
on the sizes.
 Size Estimation (Cont.)
• Outer join:
– Estimated size of r s = size of r s + size of r
• Case of right outer join is symmetric
– Estimated size of r s = size of r s + size of r + size of s
 Estimation of Number of Distinct Values
Selections: σθ (r)
• If θ forces A to take a specified value: V(A,σθ (r)) = 1.
• e.g., A = 3
• If θ forces A to take on one of a specified set of values:
V(A,σθ (r)) = number of specified values.
• (e.g., (A = 1 V A = 3 V A = 4 )),
• If the selection condition θ is of the form A op r
estimated V(A,σθ (r)) = V(A.r) * s
• where s is the selectivity of the selection.
• In all the other cases: use approximate estimate of
min(V(A,r), nσθ (r) )
– More accurate estimate can be got using probability theory, but
this one works fine generally
 Estimation of Distinct Values (Cont.)
Joins: r s
• If all attributes in A are from r
estimated V(A, r s) = min (V(A,r), n r s)
• If A contains attributes A1 from r and A2 from s, then
estimated
V(A,r s) =
min(V(A1,r)*V(A2 – A1,s), V(A1 – A2,r)*V(A2,s), nr s)
– More accurate estimate can be got using probability theory, but
this one works fine generally
 Estimation of Distinct Values (Cont.)
• Estimation of distinct values are straightforward for
projections.
– They are the same in ∏A (r) as in r.
• The same holds for grouping attributes of aggregation.
• For aggregated values
– For min(A) and max(A), the number of distinct values can be
estimated as min(V(A,r), V(G,r)) where G denotes grouping
attributes
– For other aggregates, assume all values are distinct, and use
V(G,r)
Additional Optimization Techniques

■ Nested Subqueries
■ Materialized Views
 Optimizing Nested Subqueries**
• Nested query example:
select name
from instructor
where exists (select *
from teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID and
teaches.year = 2007)
• SQL conceptually treats nested subqueries in the where
clause as functions that take parameters and return a single
value or set of values
– Parameters are variables from outer level query that are used in
the nested subquery; such variables are called correlation
variables
• Conceptually, nested subquery is executed once for each
tuple in the cross-product generated by the outer level from
clause
– Such evaluation is called correlated evaluation
– Note: other conditions in where clause may be used to compute a
join (instead of a cross-product) before executing the nested
subquery
 Optimizing Nested Subqueries (Cont.)
• Correlated evaluation may be quite inefficient since
– a large number of calls may be made to the nested query
– there may be unnecessary random I/O as a result
• SQL optimizers attempt to transform nested subqueries to
joins where possible, enabling use of efficient join
techniques
• E.g.: earlier nested query can be rewritten as
select name
from instructor, teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID and teaches.year = 2007
– Note: the two queries generate different numbers of duplicates
(why?)
• teaches can have duplicate IDs
• Can be modified to handle duplicates correctly as we will see
• In general, it is not possible/straightforward to move the
entire nested subquery from clause into the outer level
query from clause
– A temporary relation is created instead, and used in body of outer
level query
 Optimizing Nested Subqueries (Cont.)
In general, SQL queries of the form below can be rewritten as
shown
• Rewrite: select …
from L1
where P1 and exists (select *
from L2
where P2)
• To: create table t1 as
select distinct V
from L2
•P contains predicates in P
1
that do not involve any
where P2 1 2
correlation variables
2

•P22 reintroduces predicates involving correlation

select … variables, with relations renamed appropriately

•V contains all attributes used in predicates with
from L1, t1 correlation variables

where P1 and P22

 Optimizing Nested Subqueries (Cont.)

• In our example, the original nested query would be

transformed to
create table t1 as
select distinct ID
from teaches
where year = 2007

select name
from instructor, t1
where t1.ID = instructor.ID
• The process of replacing a nested query by a query
with a join (possibly with a temporary relation) is
called decorrelation.
•
 Optimizing nested queries...cont
• Decorrelation is more complicated when
– the nested subquery uses aggregation, or
– when the result of the nested subquery is used to test for equality,
or
– when the condition linking the nested subquery to the other
query is not exists,
– and so on.
 Materialized Views**
• A materialized view is a view whose contents are
computed and stored.
• Consider the view
create view department_total_salary(dept_name,
total_salary) as
select dept_name, sum(salary)
from instructor
group by dept_name
• Materializing the above view would be very useful if the total
salary by department is required frequently
– Saves the effort of finding multiple tuples and adding up their
amounts
 Materialized View Maintenance
• The task of keeping a materialized view up-to-date with the
underlying data is known as materialized view
maintenance
• Materialized views can be maintained by recomputation on
every update
• A better option is to use incremental view maintenance
– Changes to database relations are used to compute changes
to the materialized view, which is then updated
• View maintenance can be done by
– Manually defining triggers on insert, delete, and update of each
relation in the view definition
– Manually written code to update the view whenever database
relations are updated
– Periodic recomputation (e.g. nightly)
– Above methods are directly supported by many database systems
• Avoids manual effort/correctness issues
 Incremental View Maintenance
• The changes (inserts and deletes) to a relation or
expressions are referred to as its differential
– Set of tuples inserted to and deleted from r are denoted ir and dr
• To simplify our description, we only consider inserts and
deletes
– We replace updates to a tuple by deletion of the tuple followed by
insertion of the update tuple
• We describe how to compute the change to the result of
each relational operation, given changes to its inputs
• We then outline how to handle relational algebra
expressions
 Join Operation
• Consider the materialized view v = r s and an update to r
• Let rold and rnew denote the old and new states of relation r
• Consider the case of an insert to r:
– We can write rnew s as (rold ∪ ir) s
– And rewrite the above to (rold s) ∪ (ir s)
– But (rold s) is simply the old value of the materialized view, so the
incremental change to the view is just ir s
• Thus, for inserts vnew = vold ∪(ir s)
• Similarly for deletes vnew = vold – (dr s)

A, 1 1, p A, 1, p
B, 2 2, r B, 2, r
2, s B, 2, s
C,2
C, 2, r
C, 2, s
 Selection and Projection Operations
• Selection: Consider a view v = σθ(r).
– vnew = vold ∪σθ(ir)
– vnew = vold - σθ(dr)
• Projection is a more difficult operation
– R = (A,B), and r(R) = { (a,2), (a,3)}
– ∏A(r) has a single tuple (a).
– If we delete the tuple (a,2) from r, we should not delete the tuple
(a) from ∏A(r), but if we then delete (a,3) as well, we should delete
the tuple
• For each tuple in a projection ∏A(r) , we will keep a count of
how many times it was derived
– On insert of a tuple to r, if the resultant tuple is already in ∏A(r) we
increment its count, else we add a new tuple with count = 1
– On delete of a tuple from r, we decrement the count of the
corresponding tuple in ∏A(r)
 Aggregation Operations
• count : v = A gcount(B )
(r)
.
– When a set of tuples ir is inserted
• For each tuple r in ir, if the corresponding group is already present in v, we increment
its count, else we add a new tuple with count = 1
– When a set of tuples dr is deleted
• for each tuple t in ir.we look for the group t.A in v, and subtract 1 from the count for the
group.
– If the count becomes 0, we delete from v the tuple for the group t.A
• sum: v = Ag sum (B)
(r)

– We maintain the sum in a manner similar to count, except we add/subtract the B value
instead of adding/subtracting 1 for the count
– Additionally we maintain the count in order to detect groups with no tuples. Such groups
are deleted from v
• Cannot simply test for sum = 0 (why?)
• To handle the case of avg, we maintain the sum and count
aggregate values separately, and divide at the end
 Aggregate Operations (Cont.)
• min, max: v = Agmin (B) (r).
– Handling insertions on r is straightforward.
– Maintaining the aggregate values min and max on deletions may
be more expensive. We have to look at the other tuples of r that
are in the same group to find the new minimum
 Other Operations
• Set intersection: v = r ∩ s
– when a tuple is inserted in r we check if it is present in s, and if so
we add it to v.
– If the tuple is deleted from r, we delete it from the intersection if it
is present.
– Updates to s are symmetric
– The other set operations, union and set difference are handled in a
similar fashion.
• Outer joins are handled in much the same way as joins but
with some extra work
– we leave details to you.
 Handling Expressions
• To handle an entire expression, we derive expressions for
computing the incremental change to the result of each sub-
expressions, starting from the smallest sub-expressions.
• E.g. consider E1 E2 where each of E1 and E2 may be a
complex expression
– Suppose the set of tuples to be inserted into E1 is given by D1
• Computed earlier, since smaller sub-expressions are handled first
– Then the set of tuples to be inserted into E1 E2 is given by
D1 E2
• This is just the usual way of maintaining joins
 Query Optimization and Materialized Views
• Rewriting queries to use materialized views:
– A materialized view v = r s is available
– A user submits a query r s t
– We can rewrite the query as v t
• Whether to do so depends on cost estimates for the two alternative
• Replacing a use of a materialized view by the view
definition:
– A materialized view v = r s is available, but without any index
on it
– User submits a query σA=10(v).
– Suppose also that s has an index on the common attribute B, and r
has an index on attribute A.
– The best plan for this query may be to replace v by r s, which
can lead to the query plan σA=10(r) s
• Query optimizer should be extended to consider all above
alternatives and choose the best overall plan
 Materialized View Selection
• Materialized view selection: “What is the best set of views
to materialize?”.
• Index selection: “what is the best set of indices to create”
– closely related, to materialized view selection
• but simpler
• Materialized view selection and index selection based on
typical system workload (queries and updates)
– Typical goal: minimize time to execute workload , subject to
constraints on space and time taken for some critical
queries/updates
– One of the steps in database tuning
• more on tuning in later chapters
• Commercial database systems provide tools (called “tuning
assistants” or “wizards”) to help the database administrator
choose what indices and materialized views to create