Relational Model

 Structure of Relational Databases

 Fundamental Relational-Algebra-Operations
 Additional Relational-Algebra-Operations
 Extended Relational-Algebra-Operations
 Null Values
 Modification of the Database
 Relational model

 It is theoretical basis.
 Based on concept of relations.
 Relation is based on concept of sets.
 Proposed by E.F.Codd in 1970 to
model the data in the form of table.
Example of a Relation
 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. the value of an attribute can be an account number,

but cannot be a set of account numbers

 Domain is said to be atomic if all its members are atomic

 The special value null is a member of every domain

 The null value causes complications in the definition of many operations

 Relation Schema
 Relational schema is name of relations with its attribute.

 Finite set of tuples is called as relational instance.

 Formally, given domains 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

 Degree: It refers to the total number of attributes that are there in the relation.

 Schema of a relation consists of

 attribute definitions

 name

 type/domain:

 integrity constraints: set of rules

 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 row in a table
 Order of tuples is irrelevant (tuples may be stored in an arbitrary
order)
attributes
(or columns)
customer_name customer_street customer_city

Jones Main Harrison

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

customer
 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 : information about accounts

depositor : which customer owns which account
customer : information about customers
 Integrity Constraint
 While we design a Relational Model, we have to define some
conditions that must hold for the data present in a database. These
are known as constraints.
 One has to check these constraints before performing any operation
(like insertion, updating and deletion) in the database.
 If there occurs any kind of a violation in any of the constraints, the
operation will ultimately fail.
The customer Relation
The depositor Relation
Why Split Information Across Relations?
 Storing all information as a single relation such as
bank(account_number, balance, customer_name, ..)
results in

 repetition of information

 e.g.,if two customers own an account (What gets repeated?)

 the need for null values

 e.g., to represent a customer without an account

 Normalization theory deals with how to design relational schemas

 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
 In real life, an attribute such as customer_id would be used instead of
customer_name to uniquely identify customers, but we omit it to keep
our examples small, and instead assume customer names are unique.
 Keys (Cont.)
 K is a candidate key if K is minimal
Example: {customer_name} is a candidate key for Customer, since it
is a superkey and no subset of it is a superkey.

 Primary key: a candidate key chosen as the principal means of

identifying tuples within a relation

 Should choose an attribute whose value never, or very rarely,

changes.

 E.g. email address is unique, but may change

 Foreign Keys

 A relation schema may have an attribute that corresponds to the primary

key of another relation. The attribute is called a foreign key.

 E.g. customer_name and account_number attributes of depositor are

foreign keys to customer and account respectively.

 Only values occurring in the primary key attribute of the referenced

relation may occur in the foreign key attribute of the referencing
relation.
Schema Diagram
 Query Languages
 Language in which user requests information from the database.

 Categories of languages

 Procedural : the user instructs the system to perform a sequence of

operations on the database to compute the desired result.

 Non-procedural, or declarative : the user describes the desired

information without giving a specific procedure for obtaining that
information

 “Pure” languages:

 Relational algebra

 Tuple relational calculus

 Domain relational calculus

 Pure languages form underlying basis of query languages that people

use.
 Relational Algebra
 Procedural language
 Six basic operators

 select: 
 project: 
 union: 
 set difference: –
 Cartesian product: x
 rename: 
 The operators take one or two relations as inputs and produce a new
relation as a result.
 Unary Operations : select, project and rename
Relational Algebra
 Select Operation – Example
 Relation r
A B C D

  1 7
  5 7
  12 3
  23 10

 A=B ^ D > 5 (r)

A B C D

  1 7
  23 10
 Project Operation – Example
 Relation r: A B C

 10 1
 20 1
 30 1
 40 2

A,C (r) A C A C

 1  1
 1 =  1
 1  2
 2
 Union Operation – Example
 Relations r, s: A B A B

 1  2
 2  3
 1 s
r

A B

 r  s:  1
 2
 1
 3
 Set Difference Operation – Example
 Relations r, s:
A B A B

 1  2
 2  3
 1 s
r

 r – s:
A B

 1
 1
 Cartesian-Product Operation – Example
 Relations r, s:
A B C D E

 1  10 a
 10 a
 2
 20 b
r  10 b
s
 r x s:
A B C D E
 1  10 a
 1  10 a
 1  20 b
 1  10 b
 2  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b
 2  10 b
 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 ( A ,A
1 2 ,..., A n ) (E )
returns the result of expression E under the name X, and with the
attributes renamed to A1 , A2 , …., An .
 Composition of Operations
 Can build expressions using multiple operations
 Example: A=C(r x s)
 rxs
A B C D E
 1  10 a
 1  10 a
 1  20 b
 1  10 b
 2  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b
 2  10 b
 A=C(r x s)

A B C D E
 1  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b
 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

 Find all loans of over $1200

amount > 1200 (loan)

 Find the loan number for each loan of an amount greater than
$1200

loan_number (amount > 1200 (loan))

 Find the names of all customers who have a loan, an account, or both,
from the bank

customer_name (borrower)  customer_name (depositor)

 Example Queries
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the Perryridge
branch.
customer_name (branch_name=“Perryridge”
(borrower.loan_number = loan.loan_number(borrower x loan)))
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the
Perryridge branch but do not have an account at any branch of
the bank.
customer_name (branch_name = “Perryridge”

(borrower.loan_number = loan.loan_number(borrower x loan))) –

customer_name(depositor)
 Example Queries
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the Perryridge branch.

 customer_name (branch_name = “Perryridge” (

borrower.loan_number = loan.loan_number (borrower x loan)))

 customer_name(loan.loan_number =
borrower.loan_number (
(branch_name = “Perryridge” (loan)) x borrower))
 Bank Example Queries
 Find the largest account balance
 Strategy:
 Find those balances that are not the largest
– Rename account relation as d so that we can compare each
account balance with all others
 Use set difference to find those account balances that were not found
in the earlier step.
 The query is:

balance(account) - account.balance
(account.balance < d.balance (account x d (account)))
Account relation
 Additional Operations

 Additional Operations

 Set intersection

 Natural join

 Aggregation

 Outer Join

 Division

 All above, other than aggregation, can be expressed using basic

operations.
 Set-Intersection Operation – Example

 Relation r, s:
A B A B
 1  2
 2  3
 1

r s

 rs

A B

 2
 Natural Join Operation – Example
 Relations r, s:

A B C D B D E

 1  a 1 a 
 2  a 3 a 
 4  b 1 a 
 1  a 2 b 
 2  b 3 b 
r s

 r s
A B C D E
 1  a 
 1  a 
 1  a 
 1  a 
 2  b 
 Division Operation

 Notation: rs
 Suited to queries that include the phrase “for all”.
 Let r and s be relations on schemas R and S respectively
where
 R = (A1, …, Am , B1, …, Bn )
 S = (B1, …, Bn)
The result of r  s is a relation on schema
R – S = (A1, …, Am)
r  s = { t | t   R-S (r)   u  s ( tu  r ) }
Where tu means the concatenation of tuples t and u to
produce a single tuple
 Division Operation – Example
 Relations r, s:
A B
B
 1 1
 2
 3 2
 1 s
 1
 1
 3
 4
 6
 1
 2
 r  s: A r


 Another Division Example
 Relations r, s:
A B C D E D E

 a  a 1 a 1
 a  a 1 b 1
 a  b 1 s
 a  a 1
 a  b 3
 a  a 1
 a  b 1
 a  b 1
r
 r  s:
A B C

 a 
 a 
 Division Operation (Cont.)
 Property
 Let q = r  s
 Then q is the largest relation satisfying q x s  r
 Definition in terms of the basic algebra operation
Let r(R) and s(S) be relations, and let S  R

r  s = R-S (r ) – R-S ( ( R-S (r ) x s ) – R-S,S(r ))

To see why
 R-S,S (r) simply reorders attributes of r

 R-S (R-S (r ) x s ) – R-S,S(r) ) gives those tuples t in

R-S (r ) such that for some tuple u  s, tu  r.

 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.
 Extended Relational-Algebra-Operations

 Generalized Projection
 Aggregate Functions
 Outer Join
 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
F ( A ),F ( A ,,F ( A ) (E )
1 1 2 2 n n

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 Operation – Example
 Relation r:

A B C

  7
  7
  3
  10

 g sum(c) (r)
sum(c )

27
 Aggregate Operation – Example
 Relation account grouped by branch-name:

branch_name account_number balance

Perryridge A-102 400
Perryridge A-201 900
Brighton A-217 750
Brighton A-215 750
Redwood A-222 700

branch_name g sum(balance) (account)

branch_name sum(balance)
Perryridge 1300
Brighton 1500
Redwood 700
 Aggregate Functions (Cont.)
 Result of aggregation does not have a name
 Can use rename operation to give it a name
 For convenience, we permit renaming as part of aggregate
operation

branch_name g sum(balance) as sum_balance (account)

 Outer Join

 An extension of the join operation that avoids loss of information.

 Computes the join and then adds tuples from one relation that does 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
 Join

loan borrower

loan_number branch_name amount customer_name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith

 Left Outer Join

loan borrower
loan_number branch_name amount customer_name
L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith
L-260 Perryridge 1700 null
 Outer Join – Example
 Right Outer Join
loan borrower

loan_number branch_name amount customer_name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith
L-155 null null Hayes
 Full Outer Join
loan borrower

loan_number branch_name amount customer_name

L-170 Downtown 3000 Jones
L-230 Redwood 4000 Smith
L-260 Perryridge 1700 null
L-155 null null Hayes
 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 (as in SQL)

 For duplicate elimination and grouping, null is treated like any other
value, and two nulls are assumed to be the same (as in SQL)
 Null Values
 Comparisons with null values return the special truth value: unknown
 If false was used instead of unknown, then not (A < 5)
would not be equivalent to A >= 5
 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
 Delete all account records in the Perryridge branch.

account  account – branch_name = “Perryridge” (account )

 Delete all loan records with amount in the range of 0 to 50

loan  loan – amount 0and amount  50 (loan)

 Delete all accounts at branches located in Needham.

r1  branch_city = “Needham” (account branch )

r2   account_number, branch_name, balance (r1)
r3   customer_name, account_number (r2 depositor)
account  account – r2
depositor  depositor – r3
 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
 Insert information in the database specifying that Smith has $1200 in
account A-973 at the Perryridge branch.

account  account  {(“A-973”, “Perryridge”, 1200)}

depositor  depositor  {(“Smith”, “A-973”)}

 Provide as a gift for all loan customers in the Perryridge

branch, a $200 savings account. Let the loan number serve
as the account number for the new savings account.

r1  (branch_name = “Perryridge” (borrower loan))

account  account  loan_number, branch_name, 200 (r1)
depositor  depositor  customer_name, loan_number (r1)
 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   F ,F ,,F , (r )
1 2 l

 Each Fi is either
 the I th attribute of r, if the I th 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
 Make interest payments by increasing all balances by 5 percent.

account   account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.05 (account)

 Pay all accounts with balances over $10,000 6 percent interest

and pay all others 5 percent

account   account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.06 ( BAL  10000 (account ))

  account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.05 (BAL  10000
(account))
 Bank Example Queries
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan and an account at
bank.

customer_name (borrower)  customer_name (depositor)

 Find the name of all customers who have a loan at the bank and the
loan amount

customer_name, loan_number, amount (borrower loan)

 Bank Example Queries
 Find all customers who have an account from at least the “Downtown”
and the Uptown” branches.
 Query 1

customer_name (branch_name = “Downtown” (depositor account )) 

customer_name (branch_name = “Uptown” (depositor account))

 Query 2
customer_name, branch_name (depositor account)
 temp(branch_name) ({(“Downtown” ), (“Uptown” )})
Note that Query 2 uses a constant relation.
 Bank Example Queries
 Find all customers who have an account at all branches located in
Brooklyn city.

customer_name, branch_name (depositor account)

 branch_name (branch_city = “Brooklyn” (branch))
 Formal Definition
 A basic expression in the relational algebra consists of either one of the
following:
 A relation in the database
 A constant relation
 Let E1 and E2 be relational-algebra expressions; the following are all
relational-algebra expressions:

 E 1  E2

 E 1 – E2

 E1 x E2

 p (E1), P is a predicate on attributes in E1

 s(E1), S is a list consisting of some of the attributes in E1

  x (E1), x is the new name for the result of E1

 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)
 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
 Example: To eliminate the branch_name attribute of account

account_number, balance (account)

 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 (example: 2nd column
of r deals with the same type of values as does the 2nd
column of s)
 Example: to find all customers with either an account or a loan
customer_name (depositor)  customer_name (borrower)
 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
 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 and s are not disjoint, then renaming must be used.
 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)
 Tuple Relational Calculus
 A nonprocedural query language, where each query is of the
form
{t | P (t ) }
 It is the set of all tuples t such that predicate P is true for t
 t is a tuple variable, t [A ] denotes the value of tuple t on
attribute A
 t  r denotes that tuple t is in relation r
 P is a formula similar to that of the predicate calculus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTD6
nU0s3Ak
 Predicate Calculus Formula
1. Set of attributes and constants
2. Set of comparison operators: (e.g., , , , , , )
3. Set of connectives: and (), or (v)‚ not ()
4. Implication (): x  y, if x if true, then y is true
x  y x v y
5. Set of quantifiers:
 t r (Q (t )) ”there exists” a tuple in t in relation r
such that predicate Q (t ) is true
 t r (Q (t )) Q is true “for all” tuples t in relation r
 Example Queries

 Find the loan_number, branch_name, and amount for loans of over

$1200

{t | t  loan  t [amount ]  1200}

 Find the loan number for each loan of an amount greater than $1200

{t |  s loan (t [loan_number ] = s [loan_number ]  s [amount ]  1200)}

Notice that a relation on schema [loan_number ] is implicitly defined by

the query
 Example Queries

 Find the names of all customers having a loan, an account, or both at

the bank (any one condition true or both true)

{t | s  borrower ( t [customer_name ] = s [customer_name ])

 u  depositor ( t [customer_name ] = u [customer_name ])}

 Find the names of all customers who have a loan and an account
at the bank (both condition true)

{t | s  borrower ( t [customer_name ] = s [customer_name ])

 u  depositor ( t [customer_name ] = u [customer_name] )}
 Example Queries

 Find the names of all customers having a loan at the Perryridge branch

{t | s  borrower (t [customer_name ] = s [customer_name ]

 u  loan (u [branch_name ] = “Perryridge”
 u [loan_number ] = s [loan_number ])
)}

Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the

Perryridge branch, but no account at any branch of the bank

{t | s  borrower (t [customer_name ] = s [customer_name ]

 u  loan (u [branch_name ] = “Perryridge”
 u [loan_number ] = s [loan_number ]))
 not v  depositor (v [customer_name ] =
t [customer_name ])}
 Example Queries

 Find the names of all customers having a loan from the Perryridge
branch, and the cities in which they live

{t | s  loan (s [branch_name ] = “Perryridge”

 u  borrower (u [loan_number ] = s [loan_number ]
 t [customer_name ] = u [customer_name ])
  v  customer (u [customer_name ] = v [customer_name ]
 t [customer_city ] = v [customer_city ])))}
 Example Queries

 Find the names of all customers who have an account at all branches

:
located in Brooklyn

{t |  r  customer (t [customer_name ] = r [customer_name ]) 

(  u  branch (u [branch_city ] = “Brooklyn” 
 s  depositor (t [customer_name ] = s [customer_name ]
  w  account ( w[account_number ] = s [account_number ]
 ( w [branch_name ] = u [branch_name ]))))}
 Example
Consider the following schema:
 Suppliers(sid: integer, sname: string, address: string)
 Parts(pid: integer, pname: string, color: string)
 Catalog(sid: integer, pid: integer, cost: real)
The key fields are underlined. Write the following queries in relational
Algebra and tuple relational calculus.
1. Find the names of suppliers who supply some red part.
2. Find the sids of suppliers who supply some red or green part.
 employee (person name, street, city)
works (person name, company name,
salary)
company (company name, city)
(a) Find the names of all employees who
live in city ‘Miami’.
(b) Find the names of all employees
whose salary is greater than $100,000.))
 example

 employee (person name, street, city )

works (person name, company name,
salary)
company (company name, city)
manages (person name, manager name)
Consider the employee database of .
Give expressions in tuple relational
calculus for each of the following queries:
 a. Find the names of all employees who work
for “First Bank Corpora tion”.
 b.Find the names and cities of residence of
all employees who work for “First Bank
Corporation”.
 c. Find the names, street addresses, and
cities of residence of all em ployees who
work for “First Bank Corporation” and earn
more than $10,000.
 d. Find all employees who live in the same city as
that in which the company for which they work is
located.
 e. Find all employees who live in the same city and
on the same street as their managers.
 f. Find all employees in the database who do not
work for “First Bank Corporation”.
 g. Find all employees who earn more than every
employee of “Small Bank Corporation”.
 h. Assume that the companies may be located in
several cities. Find all companies located in every
city in which “Small Bank Corporation” is located.