Modifies from: Database System Concepts,

6th Ed. ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-
use
 Expressive power of a query language
o What queries can be expressed in this language?
 Procedural versus non-procedural, or declarative
 “Pure” languages:
◦ Relational algebra
◦ Tuple relational calculus
◦ Domain relational calculus
 The above 3 pure languages are equivalent in computing
power

 Relational algebra:
 Algebra of relations -> set of operators that take relations as input and
produce relations as output
 -> composable: the output of evaluating an expression in relational
algebra can be used as input to another relational algebra expression
 Now: First introduction to operators of the 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.
composable
 Notation:  p(r)
 p is called the selection predicate
 Defined as:

 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
 dept_name=“Physics”(instructor)
 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
 Let A be a subset of the attributes of relation r then:

 Example: To eliminate the dept_name attribute of

instructor
ID, name, salary (instructor)
ID, name, salary (instructor)
 Notation: r  s
 Defined as:

 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 courses taught in the Fall semester, or in
the Spring semester, or in both. First get all the section
offered in the spring and fall semester:
 semester=“Fall” (section)   semester=“Spring” (section)
2- Than show the course_ID attribute
course_id ( semester=“Fall” (section)   semester=“Spring” (section))
 Notation r – s
 Defined as:


 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
 Example: to find all courses taught in the Fall
semester but not in the Spring semester, or in both
 semester=“Fall” (section) − semester=“Spring” (section)

Then get the course_id of the selection

course_id ( semester=“Fall” (section) −  semester=“Spring” (section))
 Notation r x s
 Defined as:

 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.
 A basic expression in the relational algebra
consists of either one of the following:
A relation in the database
A constant relation: e.g., {(1),(2)}
 Let E1 and E2 be relational-algebra expressions;
the following are all relational-algebra
expressions:
 E1  E2
 E1 – 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
 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 (r)
returns the expression E under the name X
 If a relational-algebra expression E has arity n, then

 x ( A1, A2 ,..., An ) (r)

returns the result of expression E under the name X,
and with the attributes renamed to A1 , A2 , …., An .
 Find the largest salary in the university
 Step 1: find instructor salaries that are less than some other
instructor salary (not maximum) using a copy of instructor under
a new name d
 Find the largest salary in the university
 Step 2: Find the largest salary, step one return all but he
maximum value of instructor salary since the selection
condition is to show the salary that is smaller

- 95000
We define additional operations that do not
add any expressive power to the relational
algebra, but that simplify common queries.
 Natural join
 Assignment
 Outer join
  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))
 Let r and s be relations on schemas R and S
respectively.
Then, r s is defined as:
 Relations r, s:

n r s
 Find the names of all instructors in the Comp. Sci.
department together with the course titles of all the
courses that the instructors teach
 name, title ( dept_name=“Comp. Sci.” (instructor teaches
course))
 Natural join is associative
(instructor teaches) course is equivalent to
instructor (teaches course)
 Natural join is commutative (we ignore attribute order)
 instruct teaches is equivalent to teaches instructor
 The theta join operation r  s is defined as
 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.
 An extension of the join operation that
avoids loss of information.
 Computes the join and then adds tuples
form 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.
We shall study precise meaning of comparisons with
nulls later
 Relation instructor1

ID name dept_name
10101 Srinivasan Comp. Sci.
12121 Wu Finance
15151 Mozart Music

 Relation teaches1

ID course_id
10101 CS-101
12121 FIN-201
76766 BIO-101
 Join
instructor teaches
ID name dept_name course_id
10101 Srinivasan Comp. Sci. CS-101
12121 Wu Finance FIN-201

n Left Outer Join

instructor teaches

ID name dept_name course_id

10101 Srinivasan Comp. Sci. CS-101
12121 Wu Finance FIN-201
15151 Mozart Music null
n Right Outer Join
instructor teaches

ID name dept_name course_id

10101 Srinivasan Comp. Sci. CS-101
12121 Wu Finance FIN-201
76766 null null BIO-101

n Full Outer Join

instructor teaches

ID name dept_name course_id

10101 Srinivasan Comp. Sci. CS-101
12121 Wu Finance FIN-201
15151 Mozart Music null
76766 null null BIO-101
 Outer join can be expressed using basic
operations
 Given relations r(R) and s(S), such that S  R, r  s
is the largest relation t(R-S) such that
txsr
 Alternatively, all tuples from r.(R-S) such that all
their extensions on R ∩ S with tuples from s exist
in R
 Can write r  s as
 Return the name of all persons that read
all newspapers
reads newspaper
name newspaper newspaper
Peter Times Times
Bob Wall Street Wall Street
Alice Times
Alice Wall Street
 Generalized Projection
 Aggregate Functions
 Extends the projection operation by allowing arithmetic
functions to be used in the projection list.

 E is any relational-algebra expression

 Each of F1, F2, …, Fn are arithmetic expressions and
function calls involving constants and attributes in the
schema of E.
 Given relation instructor(ID, name, dept_name, salary)
where salary is annual salary, get the same information
but with monthly salary
ID, name, dept_name, salary/12 (instructor)
 Adding functions increases expressive power!
 In standard relational algebra there is no way to change
attribute values
 Aggregation function takes a set 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


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
 Note: Some books/articles use  instead of
(Calligraphic G)
 Relation r:

A B C

  7
  7
  3
  10

sum(c )
 sum(c) (r)
27
 Find the average salary in each department
dept_name avg(salary) (instructor)

avg_salar
y
 The content of the database may be
modified using the following
operations:
Deletion
Insertion
Updating
 All these operations can be expressed
using the assignment operator
 Example: Delete instructors with salary
over $1,000,000
 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
1. Set of attributes and constants
2. Set of comparison operators: (e.g., , , ,
, , )
3. Set of logical 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
  Find the ID, name, dept_name, salary for
instructors whose salary is greater than $80,000
{t | t  instructor  t [salary ]  80000}

n As in the previous query, but output only the ID attribute

value

{t |  s instructor (t [ID ] = s [ID ]  s [salary ]  80000)}

Notice that a relation on schema (ID) is implicitly defined by

the query, because
1) t is not bound to any relation by the predicate
2) we implicitly state that t has an ID attribute (t[ID] =
s[ID])
  Find the names of all instructors whose
department is in the Watson building
{t | s  instructor (t [name ] = s [name ]
 u  department (u [dept_name ] = s[dept_name] “
 u [building] = “Watson” ))}

n Find the set of all courses taught in the Fall 2009 semester, or in
the Spring 2010 semester, or both

{t | s  section (t [course_id ] = s [course_id ] 

s [semester] = “Fall”  s [year] = 2009)
v u  section (t [course_id ] = u [course_id ] 
u [semester] = “Spring”  u [year] = 2010)}
n Find the set of all courses taught in the Fall 2009 semester, and in
the Spring 2010 semester

{t | s  section (t [course_id ] = s [course_id ] 

s [semester] = “Fall”  s [year] = 2009 )
 u  section (t [course_id ] = u [course_id ] 
u [semester] = “Spring”  u [year] = 2010)}

n Find the set of all courses taught in the Fall 2009 semester, but not
in
the Spring 2010 semester
{t | s  section (t [course_id ] = s [course_id ] 
s [semester] = “Fall”  s [year] = 2009)
  u  section (t [course_id ] = u [course_id ] 
u [semester] = “Spring”  u [year] = 2010)}
 It is possible to write tuple calculus expressions
that generate infinite relations.
 For example, { t |  t r } results in an infinite
relation if the domain of any attribute of relation r
is infinite
 To guard against the problem, we restrict the set
of allowable expressions to safe expressions.
 An expression {t | P (t )} in the tuple relational
calculus is safe if every component of t appears in
one of the relations, tuples, or constants that
appear in P
◦ NOTE: this is more than just a syntax condition.
 E.g. { t | t [A] = 5  true } is not safe --- it defines an infinite
set with attribute values that do not appear in any relation or
tuples or constants in P.
 Find all students who have taken all courses offered in the
Biology department
◦ {t |  r  student (t [ID] = r [ID]) 
( u  course (u [dept_name]=“Biology” 
 s  takes (t [ID] = s [ID ] 
s [course_id] = u [course_id]))}
◦ Note that without the existential quantification on student,
the above query would be unsafe if the Biology department
has not offered any courses.
 A nonprocedural query language equivalent in
power to the tuple relational calculus
 Each query is an expression of the form:

 {  x1, x2, …, xn  | P (x1, x2, …,

xn)}

 x1, x2, …, xn represent domain variables

 Variables that range of attribute values
 P represents a formula similar to that of the predicate
calculus
Tuples can be formed using <>
 E.g., <‘Einstein’,’Physics’>
 Find the ID, name, dept_name, salary for
instructors whose salary is greater than $80,000
 {< i, n, d, s> | < i, n, d, s>  instructor  s  80000}
 As in the previous query, but output only the ID
attribute value
 {< i> | < i, n, d, s>  instructor  s  80000}
 Find the names of all instructors whose
department is in the Watson building
 {< n > |  i, d, s (< i, n, d, s >  instructor
  b, a (< d, b, a>  department  b
= “Watson” ))}
 Find the set of all courses taught in the Fall semester, or in
the Spring semester, or both
{<c> |  a, s, y, b, r, t ( <c, a, s, y, b, t >  section 
s = “Fall”)
v  a, s, y, b, r, t ( <c, a, s, y, b, t >  section ] 
s = “Spring”)}
This case can also be written as
{<c> |  a, s, y, b, r, t ( <c, a, s, y, b, t >  section 
( (s = “Fall”) v (s = “Spring))}
 Find the set of all courses taught in the Fall semester, and in
the Spring semester

{<c> |  a, s, y, b, r, t ( <c, a, s, y, b, t >  section 

s = “Fall”)
  a, s, y, b, r, t ( <c, a, s, y, b, t >  section ] 
s = “Spring”)}
The expression:
{  x1, x2, …, xn  | P (x1, x2, …, xn )}

is safe if all of the following hold:

1. All values that appear in tuples of the expression
are values from dom (P ) (that is, the values appear
either as constants in P or in a
tuple of a relation mentioned in P ).
2. For every “there exists” subformula of the form  x
(P1(x )), the subformula is true if and only if there is
a value of x in dom (P1) such that P1(x ) is true.
3. For every “for all” subformula of the form x (P1 (x
)), the subformula is true if and only if P1(x ) is true
for all values x from dom (P1).
 Find all students who have taken all courses offered in the
Biology department
 {< i > |  n, d, tc ( < i, n, d, tc >  student 
( ci, ti, dn, cr ( < ci, ti, dn, cr >  course  dn
=“Biology”
  si, se, y, g ( <i, ci, si, se, y, g> 
takes ))}
 Note that without the existential quantification on
student, the above query would be unsafe if the Biology
department has not offered any courses.

* Above query fixes bug in page 246, last query

 Codd’s theorem
Relational algebra and tuple calculus are equivalent in
terms of expressiveness

 That means that every query expressible in

relational algebra can also be expressed in tuple
calculus and vice versa
 Since domain calculus is as expressive as tuple
calculus the same holds for the domain calculus
 Note: Here relational algebra refers to the
standard version (no aggregation and projection
with functions)