Relational Model:

Integrity Constraints
Kathleen Durant
CS 3200
Lesson 3A
Outline for today
• Representing constraints from the ERM in the
Relational model
• Examples

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Integrity Constraints
• Integrity Constraint (IC) is condition that must be
true for every instance of the database; e.g.,
domain constraints.
• ICs are specified when schema is defined.
• ICs are checked when relations are modified.
• A legal instance of a relation is one that satisfies
all specified ICs.
• DBMS should not allow illegal instances.
• If the DBMS checks ICs, stored data is more
faithful to real-world meaning.
• Avoids data entry errors 3
Key Constraints
• A set of fields is a key for a relation if :
1. No two distinct tuples can have the same values in all
key fields, and
2. This is not true for any subset of the key.
• Part 2 false? A superkey.
• If there’s >1 key for a relation, one of the keys is chosen to be the
primary key.
• E.g., sid is a key for Students.
• What about student name?
• The set {sid, gpa} is a superkey.

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Specifying a primary key
• Primary key specified while creating a table
• CREATE TABLE Enrolled (sid CHAR(20), cid CHAR(40), grade
CHAR(2), PRIMARY KEY (sid, cid) )

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Foreign Keys and 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 in Enrolled is a foreign
key referring to Students:
• Enrolled(sid int, cid char(20), grade char(2))
• If all foreign key constraints are enforced, referential
integrity is achieved, i.e., no dangling references.

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 Foreign Keys
• Only students listed in the Students relation should be allowed to
enroll for courses.
• CREATE TABLE Enrolled (sid int, cid CHAR(20), grade CHAR(2),
PRIMARY KEY (sid, cid), FOREIGN KEY (sid) REFERENCES Students )

Enrolled
Students
SID Name Login DoB GPA Sid CId Grade
55515 Smith smith@ccs Jan 10,1990 3.82 55515 History 101 C
55516 Jones jones@hist Feb 11, 1992 2.98 55516 Biology 220 A
55517 Ali ali@math Sep 22, 1989 3.11 55517 Anthro 320 B
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55518 Smith smith@math Nov 30, 1991 3.32 55518 Music 101 A
55518 Music 101 A
Enforcing Referential Integrity
• Consider Students and Enrolled tables:
• sid in Enrolled is a foreign key that references the Students table.
• What should be done if an Enrolled tuple with a nonexistent
student id is inserted?
• Reject it.
• What should be done if a Student,s tuple is deleted?
• You have choices
1. Also delete all Enrolled tuples that refer to it.
2. Disallow deletion of a Students tuple that is referred to.
3. Set sid in Enrolled tuples that refer to it to a default sid.
• (In SQL, also: Set sid in Enrolled tuples that refer to it to a special value null,
denoting `unknown’ or `inapplicable’.)
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• Similar if primary key of Students tuple is updated.
Specifying behavior on Referential
Integrity violation
• Behavior specified at table create
• No action (Reject action that violates constraint)
• Update referring table (Update foreign key to the new value)
• Set to NULL (Set all foreign keys to a NULL)
• Set to a Default (Set all foreign keys to a default value)
• CREATE TABLE Enrolled (sid CHAR(20), cid CHAR(20), grade
CHAR(2), PRIMARY KEY (sid, cid), FOREIGN KEY (sid)
REFERENCES Students ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE SET
DEFAULT )

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Logical DB design: ER to Relational
• Translating an entity to a relation
Login

Sid
Dob Student Name

• Create table Student (sid int, Name char(20), Login(40), Dob date
primary key Sid )
• In translating a relationship set to a relation, attributes of the
relation must include:
• Keys for each participating entity set (as foreign keys).
• This set of attributes forms a superkey for the relation. 10
• All descriptive attributes.
Logical DB design: ER to
Relational • Create table
MajorCandidate (sid
Offers Dept. int, majorid int,
yearGrad int, PRIMARY
KEY (sid, majorid),
foreign key sid
REFERENCES Student
Make on delete cascade on
Major Course
up update cascade )

Declare Student
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Total Participation Constraint
• CREATE TABLE
Offers Dept. CourseForMajor(
Mid INTEGER not
NULL, cid integer,
PRIMARY KEY (cid),
Required bool,
Make
Major Course FOREIGN KEY Mid,
up
ON DELETE NO
ACTION)

Declare Student
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Total participation Constraint
• We can capture participation constraints for the
combined entity+relationship relation.
• Ensure foreign key value is not null
• E.g., ‘every Mid value in Major also appears in a
table Major
• Constraint is across tables

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 Weak Entity Constraint
Actor ID Birthdate Age
Scene

Number
Is in

Movie Actor

Role
Release
Director Title Name Photo
Date
• A weak entity can be identified uniquely only by considering the primary key
of another (owner) entity.
• Owner entity set and weak entity set must participate in a one to many 14
relationship set (1 owner, many weak entities).
• Weak entity set must have total participation in this identifying relationship
set.
Weak entity set
• Weak entity set and identifying relationship set are translated into a
single table.

Scene

Number

• When the owner entity (Movie) is deleted, all owned weak entities
(Scene) must also be deleted.
• CREATE TABLE MovieScene ( MovieName char(20) ReleaseDate
Date, SceneNumber int PRIMARY KEY (MovieName, ReleaseDate,
SceneNumber), FOREIGN KEY (MovieName, ReleaseDate)
REFERENCES Movies, ON DELETE CASCADE) 15
 Translating ISA Relation
General approach:
Movie
• 4 relations: Movie, Action, Drama,
Comedy
• Every movie is recorded in Movie
ISA • For each genre extra information
is stored in the corresponding
table
Action Drama Comedy • Must delete genre tuple if
referenced movie tuple is deleted.
• Queries involving all movies: only
access Movies.
• Queries on genre tables require a
join to get some attributes.
Alternative: Just Genre tables
• Each movie must be in one of
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these two subclasses.
View
• A view is just a relation, but we store a definition, rather than
a set of tuples.
• Views can be dropped using the DROP VIEW command.

How to handle DROP TABLE if there’s a view on the table?

• DROP TABLE command has options to let the user specify this.
• CREATE VIEW YoungActiveStudents (name, grade) AS SELECT
S.name, E.grade FROM Students S, Enrolled E WHERE S.sid =
E.sid and S.age<21

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From ER Model to Relational Model
• Build a table for each entity set
• Build a table for each relationship set if
necessary (more on this later)
• Make a column in the table for each attribute in
the entity set
• Indivisibility Rule and Ordering Rule
• Primary Key

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 Example – Strong Entity Set
SID Name SSN Name

Student Advisor Professor

Major Dept
GPA

SID Name Major GPA SSN Name Dept

1234 John CS 2.8 9999 Smith Math
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5678 Mary EE 3.6 8888 Lee CS
 Representation of Weak Entity Set
• Weak Entity Set Cannot exists alone
• To build a table/schema for weak entity set
• Construct a table with one column for each attribute in the
weak entity set
• Remember to include discriminator
• Add the primary key of the Strong Entity Set (the entity set
that the weak entity set is dependent on)
• Primary Key of the weak entity set = Discriminator + foreign
key

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Example – Weak Entity Set
Age
SID Name Name

Student have Children

Major GPA

Age Name Parent_SID

10 Bart 1234
8 Lisa 5678 21

* Primary key of Children is Parent_SID + Name

Representation of Relationship Set
• Can be a separate relation
• Can be incorporated into the total participation entity set

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Example – One-to-One Relationship Set
Degree
SID Name ID Code

Student study Major

Major GPA

SID Maj_ID Co S_Degree

9999 07 1234
8888 05 5678 23

* Primary key can be either SID or Maj_ID_Co

Example – One-to-One Relationship Set
Condition
SID Name Total S/N #
Participation

Student Have Laptop

Major GPA Brand

SID Name Major GPA LP_S/N Hav_Cond

9999 Bart Biology 2.0 123-456 Own
8888 Lisa Physics 4.0 567-890 Loan
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* Primary key can be either SID or LP_S/N

Representing Relationship Set
N-ary Relationship
• Intuitively Simple
• Build a new table with as many columns as there are
attributes for the union of the primary keys of all
participating entity sets.
• Augment additional columns for descriptive attributes
of the relationship set (if necessary)
• The primary key of this table is the union of all primary
keys of entity sets that are on “many” side
• That is it, we are done.

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 Example – N-ary Relationship Set
P-Key1
D-Attribute A-Key
E-Set 1

P-Key2 A relationship Another Set

E-Set 2

P-Key3

E-Set 3

P-Key1 P-Key2 P-Key3 A-Key D-Attribute

9999 8888 7777 6666 Yes
1234 5678 9012 3456 No 26

* Primary key of this table is P-Key1 + P-Key2 + P-Key3

Representing Relationship Set
Identifying Relationship
• This is what you have to know
• You DON’T have to build a table/schema for the
identifying relationship set once you have built a
table/schema for the corresponding weak entity set
• Reason:
• A special case of one-to-many with total participation
• Reduce Redundancy

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Representing Composite Attribute
• Relational Model Indivisibility Rule Applies
• One column for each component attribute
• NO column for the composite attribute itself

SSN Name
SSN Name Street City
9999 Dr. Smith 50 1st St. Fake
Professor
City

Address 8888 Dr. Lee 1 B St. San

Jose
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Street City
Representing Multivalue Attribute
• For each multivalue attribute in an entity
set/relationship set
• Build a new relation schema with two columns
• One column for the primary keys of the entity
set/relationship set that has the multivalue attribute
• Another column for the multivalue attributes. Each
cell of this column holds only one value. So each value
is represented as an unique tuple
• Primary key for this schema is the union of all
attributes
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 Example – Multivalue attribute
SID Name The primary key for this
table is Student_SID +
Children, the union of all
Children attributes
Student

Major GPA

Stud_SID Children
1234 Johnson
1234 Mary
SID Name Major GPA
5678 Bart
1234 John CS 2.8
5678 Lisa 30
5678 Homer EE 3.6
5678 Maggie
Representing Class Hierarchy
• Two general approaches depending on
disjointness and completeness
• For non-disjoint and/or non-complete class hierarchy:
• create a table for each super class entity set according to normal
entity set translation method.
• Create a table for each subclass entity set with a column for each of
the attributes of that entity set plus one for each attributes of the
primary key of the super class entity set
• This primary key from super class entity set is also used as the
primary key for this new table

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ISA Example SSN Name

Person

SID Status
Gender
ISA
Student

Major GPA
SSN Name Gender
1234 Homer Male
5678 Marge Female

SSN SID Status Major GPA

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1234 9999 Full CS 2.8
5678 8888 Part EE 3.6
Representing Class Hierarchy
• Two general approaches depending on
disjointness and completeness
• For disjoint AND complete mapping class hierarchy:
• DO NOT create a table for the super class entity set
• Create a table for each subclass entity set include all
attributes of that subclass entity set and attributes of
the superclass entity set

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Example SSN Name
No table created for
superclass entity set
NU people

ISA
SID
Student Faculty
Disjoint and
Complete mapping
Major GPA Dept

SSN Name SID Major GPA SSN Name Dept

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1234 John 9999 CS 2.8 1234 Homer C.S.
5678 Mary 8888 EE 3.6 5678 Marge Math
Representing Aggregation
Name SSN Name

Student Advisor Professor

Dept
SID

Name
member
Primary Key of Advisor
Dept

SID Code Code

1234 04
Primary key of Dept
5678 08 35
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.
• Two important ICs: primary key (key constraints)
and foreign keys (referential contraints)
• In addition, we always have domain constraints.
• Rules to translate ER to relational model

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