The Relational Model

Data Model
• DBMS models real world
• Data Model is link
between user’s view of
the world and bits stored
in computer. CUSTOMER (Cust-id: integer, Cust-name: text,
Address: text, Phone#: text)
• Many models exist
• We will concentrate on
the Relational Model
101001
101100

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 The Relational Model Concepts
• Database is a collection of relations
• Tables (relations)
• Tuples (rows)
• Attributes (columns)
• Domain

Relational Database: Some

definitions
• Relational database: a set of relations.
• Relation: made up of 2 parts:
– Schema : specifies name of relation, plus name and
type of each column.
• E.g. CUSTOMER (Cust-id: integer, Cust-name:
text, Address: text, Phone#: text)
– Instance : the current values of a table are specified
with rows and columns.
• Number of rows = cardinality
• Number of fields = degree

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 Relation
• RELATION: A table of values
– A relation may be thought of as a set of rows.
– A relation may alternately be though of as a set of
columns.
– Each row represents a fact that corresponds to a real-
world entity or relationship.
– Each row has a value of an item or set of items that
uniquely identifies that row in the table.
– Sometimes row-ids or sequential numbers are assigned
to identify the rows in the table.
– Each column typically is called by its column name or
column header or attribute name.
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Relation
• A Relation may be defined in multiple ways.
• The Schema of a Relation: R (A1, A2, .....An)
• Relation schema R is defined over attributes A1, A2, .....An
• Each attribute Ai is the name of a role played by some domain
D in the relation schema R.
• D is called the domain of Ai and is denoted by dom(Ai).
• R is called the name of the relation.
• The degree of a relation is the number of attributes n of its
relation schema.

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 Relation Example
For Example -
CUSTOMER (Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#)

Here, CUSTOMER is a relation defined over the four attributes

Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#, each of which has a
domain or a set of valid values. For example, the domain of
Cust-id is 6 digit numbers.

Tuples
• A tuple is an ordered set of values
• Each value is derived from an appropriate domain.
• Each row in the CUSTOMER table may be referred to as a
tuple in the table and would consist of four values.
• <632895, "John Smith", "101 Main St. Atlanta, GA 30332", "(404) 894-2000">
is a tuple belonging to the CUSTOMER relation.
• A relation may be regarded as a set of tuples (rows).
• Columns in a table are also called attributes of the relation.

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 Domains
• A domain has a logical definition:
– e.g., “USA_phone_numbers” are the set of 10 digit
phone numbers valid in the U.S.
• A domain may have a data-type or a format defined for it. The
USA_phone_numbers may have a format: (ddd)-ddd-dddd
where each d is a decimal digit.
– E.g., Dates have various formats such as monthname,
date, year or yyyy-mm-dd, or dd mm,yyyy etc.
• An attribute designates the role played by the domain.
– E.g., the domain Date may be used to define attributes
“Invoice-date” and “Payment-date”.

Example
STUDENT(Name, SSN, HomePhone, Address,
OfficePhone, Age, GPA)

• What is the relation name?

• What is the degree of the relation?
• What are the attributes?
• List each dom(Ai).

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 Definition Summary
Informal Terms Formal Terms

Table Relation
Column Attribute/Domain
Row Tuple
Values in a column Domain
Table Definition Schema of a Relation

Populated Table Extension

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Example - Figure 5.1

An instance of the table STUDENT

Cardinality = 5 Degree = 7

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 Characteristics of Relations
• Ordering of tuples in a relation r(R): The tuples are not
considered to be ordered, even though they appear to be in
the tabular form.

• Ordering of attributes in a relation schema R (and of

values within each tuple): We will consider the attributes in
R(A1, A2, ..., An) and the values in t=<v1, v2, ..., vn> to be ordered

• Values in a tuple: All values are considered atomic

(indivisible). A special null value is used to represent values
that are unknown or inapplicable to certain tuples.

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Relational Integrity Constraints

• Constraints are conditions that must hold on

all valid relation instances. There are three
main types of constraints:
– Key constraints
– Entity integrity constraints
– Referential integrity constraints

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 Key Constraint
• A set of fields is a superkey if:
– No two distinct tuples can have same values in all key fields
• A set of fields is a key for a relation if :
– It is a superkey
– No subset of the fields is a superkey
• What if there is more than 1 key for a relation?
– One of the keys is chosen (by DBA) to be the primary key.
– Other keys are called candidate keys.
– Primary keys are underlined
– E.g.
• SSN is a key for Students.
• What about Name?
• The set {SSN, GPA} is a superkey.
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Example Schema

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 Relational Database State

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Entity Integrity
• The primary key is used to identify individual
tuples.
• The entity integrity constraint states that no
primary key value can be null.
• Key constraints and entity constraints are
specified on individual relations.

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 Referential Integrity
• The referential integrity constraint is specified
between two relations. It is used to maintain
consistency among tuples of the two relations.
• Informally, it states that a tuple in one relation
that refers to another relation must refer to an
existing tuple in that relation.

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Referential Integrity Constraint

• Foreign key: Set of fields in one relation that is
used to `refer’ to a tuple in another relation.
– Must correspond to the primary key of the other
relation.
– Like a `logical pointer’.
• If all foreign key constraints are enforced,
referential integrity is achieved (i.e., no
dangling references.)

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 Referential Integrity Revisited
• What are the referential integrity constraints of
the example database?
• A foreign key can refer to its own relation.
• Can be shown in the schema diagram as
directed arrows drawn from each foreign key
to the primary key of the referenced relation.

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Referential Integrity Example

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 Update Operations on Relations
• INSERT a tuple
• DELETE a tuple
• MODIFY a tuple

• Integrity constraints should not be violated by the update

operations.
• Several update operations may have to be grouped
together.
• Updates may propagate to cause other updates
automatically. This may be necessary to maintain integrity
constraints.
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References
• “Fundamentals of Database Systems, 4th
Edition”, by Elmasri and Navathe
– Chapter 5
• “Database Management Systems, Third
Edition” by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke
– Chapter 3
• “Database Management Systems, Third
Edition”, by A Vaisman

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