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Relational Database Design

Charles Severance
www.wa4e.com

http://www.wa4e.com/lectures/SQL-02-MySQL-Design-Handout.txt
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Relational Database Design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_model
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Database Design
• Database design is an art form of its own with particular skills and
experience.

• Our goal is to avoid the really bad mistakes and design clean and
easily understood databases.

• Others may performance tune things later.

• Database design starts with a picture...

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www.tsugi.org
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www.sakaiproject.org
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Building a Data Model

• Drawing a picture of the data objects for our application and then
figuring out how to represent the objects and their relationships

• Basic Rule: Don t put the same string data in twice - use a relationship
instead

• When there is one thing in the real world there should only be one
copy of that thing in the database
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Track Len Artist Album Genre Rating Count

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For each piece of info ...

• Is the column an object or an Len Album
attribute of another object? Genre
• Once we define objects, we need Artist Rating
to define the relationships
between objects. Track
Count
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Track Track
Artist Rating
Album belongs-to
Len
Artist
Count
Genre Album belongs-to
Rating
Len belongs-to
Count Genre
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Track
Artist Rating
belongs-to
Len
Count
Album belongs-to

belongs-to
Genre
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Normalization
and Foreign Keys
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We want to keep track of which band is the “creator” of each music track...
What album does this song “belong to”?

Which album is this song related to?

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Database Normalization (3NF)

There is *tons* of database theory - way too much to understand
without excessive predicate calculus

• Do not replicate data. Instead, reference data. Point at data.

• Use integers for keys and for references.

• Add a special key column to each table, which you will make
references to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization
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Integer Reference Pattern

We use integer columns in one Artist
table to reference (or look up)
rows in another table.

Album
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Key Terminology
Finding our way around....
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Three Kinds of Keys

• Primary key - generally an integer auto-
increment field Album
album_id
• Logical key - what the outside world uses title
for lookup
artist_id
• Foreign key - generally an integer key ...
pointing to a row in another table
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Primary Key Rules

User
Best practices: user_id
email
• Never use your logical key as the primary key.
password
name
• Logical keys can and do change, albeit slowly.
created_at
modified_at
• Relationships that are based on matching
login_at
string fields are less efficient than integers.
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Foreign Keys
Album
• A foreign key is when a table has a Artist
album_ id
column containing a key that points artist_id
title
to the primary key of another table. name
artist_id
...
...
• When all primary keys are integers,
then all foreign keys are integers. This
is good - very good.
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Building a Physical Data Schema

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Track
Artist
belongs-to Rating
Len
Album Count
belongs-to

belongs-to
Genre
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belongs-to Track
Album Title
Rating
Len Track
Count
track_id
Album title
Table rating
album_id
Primary key len
Logical key title
Foreign key count
album_id
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Artist Track
artist_id Album track_id
name album_id title
title rating
artist_id len
Table
Primary key count
Logical key album_id
Foreign key Genre genre_id
Naming the Foreign key
genre_id
artist_id is a convention name
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Creating our Music Database

CREATE DATABASE Music
DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8;

USE Music;
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CREATE TABLE Artist (

artist_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE Album (

album_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR(255),
artist_id INTEGER,

INDEX USING BTREE (title),

CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (artist_id)

REFERENCES Artist (artist_id)
ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
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CREATE TABLE Genre (

genre_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255),
INDEX USING BTREE (name)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE Track (

track_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR(255),
len INTEGER,
rating INTEGER,
count INTEGER,
album_id INTEGER,
genre_id INTEGER,

INDEX USING BTREE (title),

CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (album_id) REFERENCES Album (album_id)

ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (genre_id) REFERENCES Genre (genre_id)
ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
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INSERT INTO Artist (name) VALUES ('Led Zepplin');

INSERT INTO Artist (name) VALUES ('AC/DC');
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INSERT INTO Artist (name) VALUES ('Led Zepplin');

INSERT INTO Artist (name) VALUES ('AC/DC');
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INSERT INTO Genre (name) VALUES ('Rock');

INSERT INTO Genre (name) VALUES ('Metal');
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INSERT INTO Album (title, artist_id) VALUES ('Who Made Who', 2);
INSERT INTO Album (title, artist_id) VALUES ('IV', 1);
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INSERT INTO Track

(title, rating, len, count, album_id, genre_id)
VALUES ('Black Dog', 5, 297, 0, 2, 1);
INSERT INTO Track
(title, rating, len, count, album_id, genre_id)
VALUES ('Stairway', 5, 482, 0, 2, 1);
INSERT INTO Track
(title, rating, len, count, album_id, genre_id)
VALUES ('About to Rock', 5, 313, 0, 1, 2);
INSERT INTO Track
(title, rating, len, count, album_id, genre_id)
VALUES ('Who Made Who', 5, 207, 0, 1, 2);
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We Have Relationships!
Track

Album
Genre

Artist
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Using Join Across Tables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join_(SQL)
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Relational Power
• By removing the replicated data and replacing it with references to a
single copy of each bit of data, we build a web of information that
the relational database can read through very quickly - even for very
large amounts of data.

• Often when you want some data it comes from a number of tables
linked by these foreign keys.
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The JOIN Operation

• The JOIN operation links across several tables as part of a SELECT
operation.

• You must tell the JOIN how to use the keys that make the
connection between the tables using an ON clause.
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The tables that

hold the data

SELECT Album.title, Artist.name FROM Album JOIN Artist ON

What we want Album.artist_id = Artist.artist_id How the tables
to see are linked
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Album.title Album.artist_id Artist.artist_id Artist.name

SELECT Album.title, Album.artist_id, Artist.artist_id,Artist.name

FROM Album JOIN Artist ON Album.artist_id = Artist.artist_id
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SELECT Track.title,
Track.genre_id,
Genre.genre_id,
Genre.name
FROM Track JOIN Genre

Joining two tables without an ON clause gives all possible combinations of rows.
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SELECT Track.title, Genre.name FROM Track JOIN Genre

ON Track.genre_id = Genre.genre_id
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It Can Get Complex...

SELECT Track.title, Artist.name, Album.title, Genre.name
FROM Track JOIN Genre JOIN Album JOIN Artist ON
Track.genre_id = Genre.genre_id AND Track.album_id =
Album.album_id AND Album.artist_id = Artist.artist_id

What we want
to see
The tables that
hold the data
How the tables
are linked
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ON DELETE CASCADE

Child

We are telling MySQL to

"clean up" broken references Parent

DELETE FROM Genre WHERE name = 'Metal'

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ON DELETE CASCADE

DELETE FROM Genre WHERE name = 'Metal'

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ON DELETE Choices

• Default / RESTRICT – Don’t allow changes that break the constraint

• CASCADE – Adjust child rows by removing or updating to maintain

consistency

• SET NULL – Set the foreign key columns in the child rows to null

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1027656/what-is-mysqls-default-on-delete-behavior
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Many-to-Many Relationships
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www.tsugi.org
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Review:
belongs-to Track One to Many
Album Title
One Many Rating
Len Track
Count
id
Table
Primary key Album title
Logical key One rating
Foreign key id
len
title Many
count
album_id
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-to-many_(data_model)
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One One Many

Many

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-to-many_(data_model)
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Many to Many
• Sometimes we need to model a
relationship that is many to many.
• We need to add a “connection”
table with two foreign keys.
• There is usually no separate
primary key.
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member-of
User
Course
title Many Many email
name

User
Course Member user_id
course_id Many
user_id email
Many One
title One course_id name
role

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-to-many_(data_model)
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Start with a Fresh Database

CREATE TABLE User (
user_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
email VARCHAR(128) UNIQUE,
name VARCHAR(128)
) ENGINE=InnoDB CHARACTER SET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE Course (

course_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
title VARCHAR(128) UNIQUE
) ENGINE=InnoDB CHARACTER SET=utf8;
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Member User
Course Many One
One user_id
Many user_id
course_id
course_id email
title
role name
CREATE TABLE Member (
user_id INTEGER,
course_id INTEGER,
role INTEGER,

CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES User (user_id)

ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (course_id) REFERENCES Course (course_id)
ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,

PRIMARY KEY (user_id, course_id)

) ENGINE=InnoDB CHARACTER SET=utf8;
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Insert Users and Courses

INSERT INTO User (name, email) VALUES ('Jane', '[email protected]');
INSERT INTO User (name, email) VALUES ('Ed', '[email protected]');
INSERT INTO User (name, email) VALUES ('Sue', '[email protected]');

INSERT INTO Course (title) VALUES ('Python');

INSERT INTO Course (title) VALUES ('SQL');
INSERT INTO Course (title) VALUES ('PHP');
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Insert Memberships

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (1, 1, 1);

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (2, 1, 0);
INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (3, 1, 0);

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (1, 2, 0);

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (2, 2, 1);

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (2, 3, 1);

INSERT INTO Member (user_id, course_id, role) VALUES (3, 3, 0);
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SELECT User.name, Member.role, Course.title

FROM User JOIN Member JOIN Course
ON Member.user_id = User.user_id AND
Member.course_id = Course.course_id
ORDER BY Course.title, Member.role DESC, User.name
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https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/
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www.tsugi.org
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Complexity Enables Speed

• Complexity makes speed possible and allows you to get very fast
results as the data size grows.

• By normalizing the data and linking it with integer keys, the overall
amount of data which the relational database must scan is far lower
than if the data were simply flattened out.

• It might seem like a tradeoff - spend some time designing your

database so it continues to be fast when your application is a success.
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Summary
• Relational databases allow us to scale to very large amounts of data.

• The key is to have one copy of any data element and use relations and
joins to link the data to multiple places.

• This greatly reduces the amount of data that must be scanned when
doing complex operations across large amounts of data.

• Database and SQL design is a bit of an art form.

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Acknowledgements / Contributions
These slides are Copyright 2010- Charles R. Severance (www.dr- Continue new Contributors and Translators here
chuck.com) as part of www.wa4e.com and made available under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Please maintain this
last slide in all copies of the document to comply with the
attribution requirements of the license. If you make a change, feel
free to add your name and organization to the list of contributors
on this page as you republish the materials.

Initial Development: Charles Severance, University of Michigan

School of Information

Insert new Contributors and Translators here including names and

dates