Relational Model Concepts

•The relational Model of Data is based on the

concept of a Relation.

•A Relation is a mathematical concept based on the

ideas of sets.

•We review the essentials of the relational

approach in this chapter.

Chapter 5-1
 Relational Model Concepts
•The model was first proposed by Dr. E.F. Codd of
IBM in 1970 in the following paper:
"A Relational Model for Large Shared Data Banks,"
Communications of the ACM, June 1970.

The above paper caused a major revolution in the field of

Database management and earned Ted Codd the coveted
ACM Turing Award.

Chapter 5-2
INFORMAL DEFINITIONS
•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.

Chapter 5-3
FORMAL DEFINITIONS
•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
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.

Chapter 5-4
FORMAL DEFINITIONS
•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.

Chapter 5-5
FORMAL DEFINITIONS
•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.

Chapter 5-6
FORMAL DEFINITIONS
•The relation is formed over the cartesian product of the sets;
each set has values from a domain; that domain is used in a
specific role which is conveyed by the attribute name.
•For example, attribute Cust-name is defined over the domain
of strings of 25 characters. The role these strings play in the
CUSTOMER relation is that of the name of customers.
•Formally,
Given R(A1, A2, .........., An)
r(R) ⊂ dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)
•R: schema of the relation
•r of R: a specific "value" or population of R.
•R is also called the intension of a relation
•r is also called the extension of a relation

Chapter 5-7
FORMAL DEFINITIONS
•Let S1 = {0,1}
•Let S2 = {a,b,c}

•Let R ⊂ S1 X S2

•Then for example: r(R) = {<0,a> , <0,b> , <1,c> }

is one possible “state” or “population” or “extension”
r of the relation R, defined over domains S1 and S2. It
has three tuples.

Chapter 5-8
 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
Chapter 5-9
Example - Figure 5.1

Chapter 5-10
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 .
•(However, a more general alternative definition of
relation does not require this ordering. It includes
both the name and the value for each of the
attributes ).
•Example: t= { <name, “John” >, <SSN, 123456789> }
•This representation may be called as “self-describing”.
• 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. Chapter 5-11
CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONS- Figure 5.2

Chapter 5-12
Relational Integrity Constraints

• Constraints are conditions that must hold on all valid relation

instances. There are three main types of constraints:
1. Key constraints
2. Entity integrity constraints
3. Referential integrity constraints

Chapter 5-13
Key Constraints
• Superkey of R: A set of attributes SK of R such that no
two tuples in any valid relation instance r(R) will have
the same value for SK. That is, for any distinct tuples t1
and t2 in r(R), t1[SK] ≠ t2[SK].
• Key of R: A "minimal" superkey; that is, a superkey K
such that removal of any attribute from K results in a set
of attributes that is not a superkey.
Example: The CAR relation schema:
CAR(State, Reg#, SerialNo, Make, Model, Year)
has two keys Key1 = {State, Reg#}, Key2 = {SerialNo}, which are also
superkeys. {SerialNo, Make} is a superkey but not a key.
• If a relation has several candidate keys, one is chosen
arbitrarily to be the primary key. The primary key
attributes are underlined.

Chapter 5-14
Chapter 5-15
Chapter 5-16
5.5

Chapter 5-17
 Entity Integrity
•Relational Database Schema: A set S of relation schemas
that belong to the same database. S is the name of the
database.
S = {R1, R2, ..., Rn}
•Entity Integrity: The primary key attributes PK of each
relation schema R in S cannot have null values in any tuple
of r(R). This is because primary key values are used to
identify the individual tuples.
t[PK] ≠ null for any tuple t in r(R)
• Note: Other attributes of R may be similarly constrained to
disallow null values, even though they are not members of
the primary key.

Chapter 5-18
 Referential Integrity
•A constraint involving two relations (the previous
constraints involve a single relation).
•Used to specify a relationship among tuples in two
relations: the referencing relation and the referenced
relation.
•Tuples in the referencing relation R1 have attributes FK
(called foreign key attributes) that reference the primary
key attributes PK of the referenced relation R2. A tuple t1 in
R1 is said to reference a tuple t2 in R2 if t1[FK] = t2[PK].
•A referential integrity constraint can be displayed in a
relational database schema as a directed arc from R1.FK to
R 2.

Chapter 5-19
Referential Integrity
Constraint
Statement of the constraint
The value in the foreign key column (or columns) FK of the the
referencing relation R1 can be either:
(1) a value of an existing primary key value of the
corresponding primary key PK in the referenced
relation R2,, or..
(2) a null.

Chapter 5-20
5.7
 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.
 Update Operations on Relations
•In case of integrity violation, several actions can be
taken:
•Cancel the operation that causes the violation (REJECT
option)
•Perform the operation but inform the user of the
violation
•Trigger additional updates so the violation is corrected
(CASCADE option, SET NULL option)
•Execute a user-specified error-correction routine

Chapter 5-23
5.6

Chapter 5-24
 Class Participation
• Consider designing a web based airline system. It makes reservations
and sell airline tickets.
• What DBMS architecture would you choose to design it? Why?
• Why not the other architectures be a good choice.
• Think of a ticketing representative who have to make reservations for
passenger and design a view for him.

Chapter 5-25