The Relational Model

Excerpt from
Chapter 3, “Database Management Systems” 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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 Why Study the Relational Model?

™ Most widely used model.

ƒ Vendors: IBM, Informix, Microsoft, Oracle,
Sybase, etc.

™ Recent competitor: object-oriented model

ƒ ObjectStore, Versant, Ontos
ƒ A synthesis emerging: object-relational model
• Informix Universal Server, UniSQL, O2, Oracle, DB2

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 Relational Database: Definitions

™ Relational database: a set of relations

™ Relation: made up of 2 parts:
ƒ Instance : a table, with rows and columns.
#Rows = cardinality, #fields = degree / arity.
ƒ Schema : specifies name of relation, plus name and
type of each column.
• e.g. Students(sid: string, name: string, login: string,
age: integer, gpa: real).
™ Can think of a relation as a set of rows or
tuples (i.e., all rows are distinct).

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 Example Instance of Students Relation

sid name login age gpa

53666 Jones jones@cs 18 3.4
53688 Smith smith@eecs 18 3.2
53650 Smith smith@math 19 3.8

™ Cardinality = 3, degree = 5, all rows distinct

™ Do all columns in a relation instance have to
be distinct?

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 The SQL Query Language

™ To find all 18 year old students, we can write:

SELECT * sid name login age gpa

FROM Students S 53666 Jones jones@cs 18 3.4
WHERE S.age=18 53688 Smith smith@ee 18 3.2

•To find just names and logins, replace the first line:
SELECT S.name, S.login

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 Creating Relations in SQL
™ Creates the Students CREATE TABLE Students
relation. Observe that the (sid: CHAR(20),
type (domain) of each field name: CHAR(20),
login: CHAR(10),
is specified, and enforced by
age: INTEGER,
the DBMS whenever tuples gpa: REAL)
are added or modified.
™ As another example, the
CREATE TABLE Enrolled
Enrolled table holds (sid: CHAR(20),
information about courses cid: CHAR(20),
that students take. grade: CHAR(2))

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 Destroying and Altering Relations

DROP TABLE Students

™ Destroys the relation Students. The schema

information and the tuples are deleted.

ALTER TABLE Students

ADD COLUMN firstYear: integer

™ The schema of Students is altered by adding a

new field; every tuple in the current instance
is extended with a null value in the new field.
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 Adding and Deleting Tuples
™ Can insert a single tuple using:
INSERT INTO Students (sid, name, login, age, gpa)
VALUES (53688, ‘Smith’, ‘smith@ee’, 18, 3.2)

™ Can delete all tuples satisfying some

condition (e.g., name = Smith):
DELETE
FROM Students S
WHERE S.name = ‘Smith’

* Powerful variants of these commands are available; more later!

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 Integrity Constraints (ICs)
™ IC: condition that must be true for any instance
of the database; e.g., domain constraints.
ƒ ICs are specified when schema is defined.
ƒ ICs are checked when relations are modified.
™ A legal instance of a relation is one that satisfies
all specified ICs.
ƒ DBMS should not allow illegal instances.
™ If the DBMS checks ICs, stored data is more
faithful to real-world meaning.
ƒ Avoids data entry errors, too!

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 Where do ICs Come From?

™ ICs are based upon the semantics of the real-

world enterprise that is being described in the
database relations.
™ We can check a database instance to see if an
IC is violated, but we can NEVER infer that
an IC is true by looking at an instance.
ƒ An IC is a statement about all possible instances!
ƒ From example, we know name is not a key, but the
assertion that sid is a key is given to us.

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 Primary Key Constraints

™ A set of fields is a key for a relation if :

1. No two distinct tuples can have same values in all
key fields, and
2. This is not true for any subset of the key.
ƒ Part 2 false? A superkey.
ƒ If there’s >1 key for a relation, one of the keys is
chosen (by DBA) to be the primary key.
™ E.g., sid is a key for Students. (What about
name?) The set {sid, gpa} is a superkey.

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 Primary and Candidate Keys in SQL
™ Possibly many candidate keys (specified using
UNIQUE), one of which is chosen as the primary key.
CREATE TABLE Enrolled
™ “For a given student and course, (sid CHAR(20)
there is a single grade.” cid CHAR(20),
grade CHAR(2),
vs. PRIMARY KEY (sid,cid) )
CREATE TABLE Enrolled
™ “Students can take only one
(sid CHAR(20)
course, and receive a single grade cid CHAR(20),
for that course; further, no two grade CHAR(2),
students in a course receive the PRIMARY KEY (sid),
same grade.” UNIQUE (cid, grade) )
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 Foreign Keys, Referential Integrity

™ Foreign key : Set of fields in one relation that is used

to `refer’ to a tuple in another relation. (Must
correspond to primary key of the second relation.)
Like a `logical pointer’.
™ E.g. sid is a foreign key referring to Students:
ƒ Enrolled(sid: string, cid: string, grade: string)
ƒ If all foreign key constraints are enforced, referential
integrity is achieved, i.e., no dangling references.
ƒ Can you name a data model w/o referential integrity?
• Links in HTML!

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 Foreign Keys in SQL
™ Only students listed in the Students relation should
be allowed to enroll for courses.
CREATE TABLE Enrolled
(sid CHAR(20), cid CHAR(20), grade CHAR(2),
PRIMARY KEY (sid,cid),
FOREIGN KEY (sid) REFERENCES Students )
Enrolled
sid cid grade Students
53666 Carnatic101 C sid name login age gpa
53666 Reggae203 B 53666 Jones jones@cs 18 3.4
53650 Topology112 A 53688 Smith smith@eecs 18 3.2
53666 History105 B 53650 Smith smith@math 19 3.8

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 Enforcing Referential Integrity
™ Consider Students and Enrolled; sid in Enrolled is a foreign
key that references Students.
™ What should be done if an Enrolled tuple with a non-
existent student id is inserted? (Reject it!)
™ What should be done if a Students tuple is deleted?
ƒ Also delete all Enrolled tuples that refer to it (CASCADE).
ƒ Disallow deletion of a Students tuple that is referred to (NO
ACTION).
ƒ Set sid in Enrolled tuples that refer to it to a default sid (SET
DEFAULT).
ƒ In SQL, also: Set sid in Enrolled tuples that refer to it to a special
value null, denoting `unknown’ or `inapplicable’ (SET NULL).
™ Similar if primary key of Students tuple is updated.

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 Referential Integrity in SQL

™ SQL/92 and SQL:1999 CREATE TABLE Enrolled

support all 4 options on (sid CHAR(20),
deletes and updates. cid CHAR(20),
ƒ Default is NO ACTION grade CHAR(2),
(delete/update is rejected) PRIMARY KEY (sid,cid),
ƒ CASCADE (also delete FOREIGN KEY (sid)
all tuples that refer to REFERENCES Students
deleted tuple) ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE SET DEFAULT )
ƒ SET NULL / SET DEFAULT
(sets foreign key value
of referencing tuple)

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 Relational Model: Summary

™ A tabular representation of data.

™ Simple and intuitive, currently the most widely used.
™ Integrity constraints can be specified by the DBA,
based on application semantics. DBMS checks for
violations.
ƒ Two important ICs: primary and foreign keys
ƒ In addition, we always have domain constraints.
™ Powerful and natural query languages exist.
™ There are rules to translate ER to relational model

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