Relational Model

 Structure of Relational Databases

 Relational Algebra
 Tuple Relational Calculus
 Domain Relational Calculus
 Extended Relational-Algebra-
Operations
 Modification of the Database
 Views
Example of a Relation
Basic Structure
 Formally, given sets D1, D2, …. Dn a relation r is a
subset of
D1 x D2 x … x Dn
Thus a relation is a set of n-tuples (a1, a2, …, an) where
each ai  Di
 Example: if
customer-name = {Jones, Smith, Curry, Lindsay}
customer-street = {Main, North, Park}
customer-city = {Harrison, Rye, Pittsfield}
Then r = { (Jones, Main, Harrison),
(Smith, North, Rye),
(Curry, North, Rye),
(Lindsay, Park, Pittsfield)}
is a relation over customer-name x customer-street x
customer-city
Attribute Types

 Each attribute of a relation has a name

 The set of allowed values for each attribute is called
the domain of the attribute
 Attribute values are (normally) required to be
atomic, that is, indivisible
 E.g. multivalued attribute values are not atomic
 E.g. composite attribute values are not atomic

 The special value null is a member of every domain

 The null value causes complications in the definition
of many operations
Relation Schema
 A1, A2, …, An are attributes
 R = (A1, A2, …, An ) is a relation schema
E.g. Customer-schema =
(customer-name, customer-street,
customer-city)
 r(R) is a relation on the relation schema R
E.g. customer (Customer-schema)
Relation Instance
 The current values (relation instance) of a
relation are specified by a table
 An element t of r is a tuple, represented by a
attributes
row in a table (or columns)
customer-name customer-street customer-city

Jones Main Harrison

Smith North Rye tuples
Curry North Rye (or rows)
Lindsay Park Pittsfield

customer
 Relations are Unordered

 Order of tuples is irrelevant (tuples may be stored in an arbitrary order)

 E.g. account relation with unordered tuples
Database

 A database consists of multiple relations

 Information about an enterprise is broken up into parts, with each
relation storing one part of the information

 E.g.: account : stores information about accounts

depositor : stores information about which customer owns
which account
customer : stores information about customers
 Storing all information as a single relation such as
bank(account-number, balance, customer-name, ..)
results in
 repetition of information (e.g. two customers own an account)
 the need for null values (e.g. represent a customer without an
account)
The customer Relation
The depositor Relation
E-R Diagram for the Banking Enterprise
Keys

 Let K  R
 K is a superkey of R if values for K are sufficient to identify a unique tuple
of each possible relation r(R)
 by “possible r” we mean a relation r that could exist in the enterprise we
are modeling.
 Example: {customer-name, customer-street} and
{customer-name}
are both superkeys of Customer, if no two customers can possibly have
the same name.
 K is a candidate key if K is minimal
Example: {customer-name} is a candidate key for Customer, since it is a
superkey (assuming no two customers can possibly have the same name),
and no subset of it is a superkey.
Determining Keys from E-R Sets
 Strong entity set. The primary key of the entity set becomes the primary
key of the relation.
 Weak entity set. The primary key of the relation consists of the union of the
primary key of the strong entity set and the discriminator of the weak entity
set.
 Relationship set. The union of the primary keys of the related entity sets
becomes a super key of the relation.
 For binary many-to-one relationship sets, the primary key of the “many”
entity set becomes the relation’s primary key.
 For one-to-one relationship sets, the relation’s primary key can be that
of either entity set.
 For many-to-many relationship sets, the union of the primary keys
becomes the relation’s primary key
Schema Diagram for the Banking Enterprise
Query Languages
 Language in which user requests information from the
database.
 Categories of languages
 procedural
 non-procedural
 “Pure” languages:
 Relational Algebra
 Tuple Relational Calculus
 Domain Relational Calculus
 Pure languages form underlying basis of query
languages that people use.
Relational Algebra
 Six basic operators
 select

 project

 union

 setdifference
 Cartesian product

 rename

 The operators take one or more relations as inputs

and give a new relation as a result.
Formal Definition
Select Operation
 Notation:  p(r)
 p is called the selection predicate
 Defined as:
p(r) = {t | t  r and p(t)}
Where p is a formula in propositional calculus consisting of terms
connected by :  (and),  (or),  (not)
Each term is one of:
<attribute> op <attribute> or <constant>
where op is one of: =, , >, . <. 
 Example of selection:
 branch-name=“Perryridge”(account)
Select Operation – Example
Project Operation
 Notation:

A1, A2, …, Ak (r)

where A1, A2 are attribute names and r is a relation name.
 The result is defined as the relation of k columns obtained by
erasing the columns that are not listed
 Duplicate rows removed from result, since relations are sets
 E.g. To eliminate the branch-name attribute of account
account-number, balance (account)
Project Operation – Example
Union Operation

 Notation: r  s
 Defined as:
r  s = {t | t  r or t  s}

 For r  s to be valid.
1. r, s must have the same arity (same number of
attributes)
2. The attribute domains must be compatible (e.g., 2nd
column of r deals with the same type of values as does the
2nd column of s)
 E.g. to find all customers with either an account or a loan
customer-name (depositor)  customer-name (borrower)
Union Operation – Example
Set Difference Operation
 Notation r – s
 Defined as:
r – s = {t | t  r and t  s}
 Set differences must be taken between compatible
relations.
r and s must have the same arity
 attribute domains of r and s must be compatible
Set Difference Operation – Example
Cartesian-Product Operation
 Notation r x s
 Defined as:
r x s = {t q | t  r and q  s}
 Assume that attributes of r(R) and s(S) are disjoint.
(That is, R  S = ).
 If attributes of r(R) and s(S) are not disjoint, then
renaming must be used.
Cartesian-Product Operation-
Example
Composition of Operations
Rename Operation

 Allows us to name, and therefore to refer to, the

results of relational-algebra expressions.
 Allows us to refer to a relation by more than one

name.
Example:
 x (E)
returns the expression E under the name X
If a relational-algebra expression E has arity n, then
x (A1, A2, …, An) (E)
returns the result of expression E under the name X,
and with the attributes renamed to A1, A2, …., An.
 Example Queries
Example: The table E (for EMPLOYEE)

nr name salary
1 John 100
5 Sarah 300
7 Tom 100
PROJECT salary(E) PROJECTnr, salary(E)
salary
100
300

SELECT salary < 200(E)

PROJECTname, salary(SELECTsalary < 200(E))
 Select Operator
31
 Produce table containing subset of rows of
argument table satisfying condition
condition (relation)
 Example:
Person Hobby=‘stamps’(Person)

Id Name Address Hobby Id Name Address Hobby

1123 John 123 Main stamps 1123 John 123 Main stamps
1123 John 123 Main coins 9876 Bart 5 Pine St stamps
5556 Mary 7 Lake Dr hiking
9876 Bart 5 Pine St stamps
32
Selection Condition - Examples
  Id>3000 OR Hobby=‘hiking’ (Person)

  Id>3000 AND Id <3999 (Person)

  NOT(Hobby=‘hiking’) (Person)
  Hobby‘hiking’ (Person)
 Project Operator
33
 Produces table containing subset of columns of
argument table
attribute list(relation)
 Example:
Person Name,Hobby(Person)

Id Name Address Hobby Name Hobby

1123 John 123 Main stamps John stamps

1123 John 123 Main coins John coins
5556 Mary 7 Lake Dr hiking Mary hiking
9876 Bart 5 Pine St stamps Bart stamps
Project Operator
Project Operator
Expressions
Banking Example

branch (branch-name, branch-city, assets)

customer (customer-name, customer-street,
customer-city)
account (account-number, branch-name, balance)
loan (loan-number, branch-name, amount)
depositor (customer-name, account-number)
borrower (customer-name, loan-number)
Example Queries
Example Queries
Example Queries
Example Queries
Example Queries
Additional Operations

We define additional operations that do not add any power

to the
relational algebra, but that simplify common queries.
 Set intersection
 Natural join
 Division
 Assignment
Set-Intersection Operation
 Notation: r  s
 Defined as:
 r  s ={ t | t  r and t  s }
 Assume:
 r,s have the same arity
 attributes of r and s are compatible

 Note: r  s = r - (r - s)
Set-Intersection Operation - Example
Natural-Join Operation
 Notation: r s

 Let r and s be relations on schemas R and S respectively.

Then, r s is a relation on schema R  S obtained as follows:
 Consider each pair of tuples tr from r and ts from s.

 If tr and ts have the same value on each of the attributes in R  S, add a

tuple t to the result, where
 t has the same value as tr on r
 t has the same value as ts on s

 Example:
R = (A, B, C, D)
S = (E, B, D)
 Result schema = (A, B, C, D, E)

 r s is defined as:
r.A, r.B, r.C, r.D, s.E (r.B = s.B  r.D = s.D (r x s))
Natural Join Operation – Example
Division Operation
Division Operation – Example
Another Division Example
Another Division Example
Assignment Operation

 The assignment operation () provides a convenient way to express complex queries.
 Write query as a sequential program consisting of
 a series of assignments
 followed by an expression whose value is displayed as a result of the query.
 Assignment must always be made to a temporary relation variable.
 Example: Write r  s as
temp1  R-S (r)
temp2  R-S ((temp1 x s) – R-S,S (r))
result = temp1 – temp2
 The result to the right of the  is assigned to the relation variable on the left of the .
 May use variable in subsequent expressions.
Example Queries

Query 1
CN( BN=“Downtown”(depositor account))

CN( BN=“Uptown”(depositor account))

where CN denotes customer-name and BN denotes

branch-name.

Query 2
customer-name, branch-name (depositor account)
temp(branch-name) ({(“Downtown”), (“Uptown”)})
Example Queries
 Extended Relational-Algebra-Operations

 Generalized Projection
 Outer Join
 Aggregate Functions
Generalized Projection
 Extends the projection operation by allowing
arithmetic functions to be used in the projection list.

 F1, F2, …, Fn(E)

 E is any relational-algebra expression
 Each of F1, F2, …, Fn are are arithmetic expressions
involving constants and attributes in the schema of E.
 Given relation credit-info(customer-name, limit,
credit-balance), find how much more each person
can spend:
customer-name, limit – credit-balance (credit-info)
 Aggregate Functions and Operations

 Aggregation function takes a collection of values and returns a single

value as a result.
avg: average value
min: minimum value
max: maximum value
sum: sum of values
count: number of values
 Aggregate operation in relational algebra
G1, G2, …, Gn g F1( A1), F2( A2),…, Fn( An) (E)
 E is any relational-algebra expression
 G1, G2 …, Gn is a list of attributes on which to group (can be empty)
 Each Fi is an aggregate function
 Each Ai is an attribute name
Aggregate Functions and Grouping

SUM(A)
R= A B
COUNT(A)
1 3
MIN(B)
3 4
MAX(B)
3 2
AVG(B)
SUM(A) = 1 + 3 + 3 = 7
COUNT(A) = 3
MIN(B) = 2
MAX(B) = 4
AVG(B) = (3 + 4 + 2) / 3 = 3
Aggregate Operation – Example
Aggregate Operation – Example
Aggregate Functions (Cont.)
Outer Join
 An extension of the join operation that avoids loss
of information.
 Computes the join and then adds tuples form one
relation that do not match tuples in the other
relation to the result of the join.
 Uses null values:
 null signifies that the value is unknown or does not exist
 All comparisons involving null are (roughly speaking)
false by definition.
Outer Join – Example
 Relation loan
loan-number branch-name amount
L-170 Downtown 3000
L-230 Redwood 4000
L-260 Perryridge 1700

 Relation borrower
customer-name loan-number
Jones L-170
Smith L-230
Hayes L-155
Outer Join – Example
Outer Join – Example
Null Values
 It is possible for tuples to have a null value, denoted by null, for some of
their attributes
 null signifies an unknown value or that a value does not exist.
 The result of any arithmetic expression involving null is null.
 Aggregate functions simply ignore null values
 For duplicate elimination and grouping, null is treated like any other value,
and two nulls are assumed to be the same
 Alternative: assume each null is different from each other
Null Values
 Comparisons with null values return the special truth value unknown
 Three-valued logic using the truth value unknown:
 OR: (unknown or true) = true,
(unknown or false) = unknown
(unknown or unknown) = unknown
 AND: (true and unknown) = unknown,
(false and unknown) = false,
(unknown and unknown) = unknown
 NOT: (not unknown) = unknown
 In SQL “P is unknown” evaluates to true if predicate P evaluates to
unknown
 Result of select predicate is treated as false if it evaluates to unknown
Modification of the Database
 The content of the database may be modified using
the following operations:
 Deletion

 Insertion

 Updating

 All these operations are expressed using the

assignment operator.
Deletion
 A delete request is expressed similarly to a query,
except instead of displaying tuples to the user, the
selected tuples are removed from the database.
 Can delete only whole tuples; cannot delete values
on only particular attributes
 A deletion is expressed in relational algebra by:
rr–E
where r is a relation and E is a relational algebra
query.
Deletion Examples
Insertion
 To insert data into a relation, we either:
 specify a tuple to be inserted
 write a query whose result is a set of tuples to be
inserted
 in relational algebra, an insertion is expressed by:
r r  E
where r is a relation and E is a relational algebra
expression.
 The insertion of a single tuple is expressed by
letting E be a constant relation containing one tuple.
Insertion Examples
Updating
 A mechanism to change a value in a tuple without
charging all values in the tuple
 Use the generalized projection operator to do this
task
r   F1, F2, …, FI, (r)
 Each Fi is either
 the ith attribute of r, if the ith attribute is not updated,
or,
 if the attribute is to be updated Fi is an expression,
involving only constants and the attributes of r, which
gives the new value for the attribute
Update Examples
Views
 In some cases, it is not desirable for all users to see the
entire logical model (i.e., all the actual relations stored
in the database.)
 Consider a person who needs to know a customer’s
loan number but has no need to see the loan amount.
This person should see a relation described, in the
relational algebra, by
customer-name, loan-number (borrower loan)
 Any relation that is not of the conceptual model but is
made visible to a user as a “virtual relation” is called
a view.
View Definition
 A view is defined using the create view statement which has the
form
create view v as <query expression
where <query expression> is any legal relational algebra query
expression. The view name is represented by v.
 Once a view is defined, the view name can be used to refer to
the virtual relation that the view generates.
 View definition is not the same as creating a new relation by
evaluating the query expression
 Rather, a view definition causes the saving of an expression;
the expression is substituted into queries using the view.
View Examples
Views Defined Using Other Views
 One view may be used in the expression defining
another view
 A view relation v1 is said to depend directly on a
view relation v2 if v2 is used in the expression
defining v1
 A view relation v1 is said to depend on view relation
v2 if either v1 depends directly to v2 or there is a path of
dependencies from v1 to v2
 A view relation v is said to be recursive if it
depends on itself.
View Expansion
 A way to define the meaning of views defined in terms of other
views.
 Let view v1 be defined by an expression e1 that may itself contain
uses of view relations.
 View expansion of an expression repeats the following
replacement step:
repeat
Find any view relation vi in e1
Replace the view relation vi by the expression defining vi
until no more view relations are present in e1
 As long as the view definitions are not recursive, this loop will
terminate