CST403 Principles of

Database Systems
Relational Algebra
Overview
• Relational algebra is the basic set of operations for the relational
model
• These operations enable a user to specify basic retrieval requests (or
queries)
• The result of an operation is a new relation, which may have been
formed from one or more input relations
• A sequence of relational algebra operations forms a relational
algebra expression
• The result of a relational algebra expression is also a relation that represents
the result of a database query (or retrieval request)
• Relational Algebra consists of several groups of operations
• Unary Relational Operations
• SELECT (symbol:  (sigma))
• PROJECT (symbol:  (pi))
• RENAME (symbol:  (rho))
• Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
• UNION (  ), INTERSECTION (  ), DIFFERENCE (or MINUS, – )
• CARTESIAN PRODUCT ( x )
• Binary Relational Operations
• JOIN (several variations of JOIN exist)
• DIVISION
• Additional Relational Operations
• OUTER JOINS, OUTER UNION
• AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS (These compute summary of information: for
example, SUM, COUNT, AVG, MIN, MAX)
All examples discussed below refer to the
COMPANY database shown here
This is the database
state
Unary Relational Operations: SELECT
• The SELECT operation (denoted by  (sigma)) is used to select a subset of the
tuples from a relation based on a selection condition.
• The selection condition acts as a filter
• Keeps only those tuples that satisfy the qualifying condition
• Tuples satisfying the condition are selected whereas the other tuples are
discarded (filtered out)
• Examples:
• Select the EMPLOYEE tuples whose department number is 4:
 DNO = 4 (EMPLOYEE)
• Select the employee tuples whose salary is greater than $30,000:
 SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)
Unary Relational Operations: PROJECT
• PROJECT Operation is denoted by  (pi)
• This operation keeps certain columns (attributes) from a relation and
discards the other columns.
• PROJECT creates a vertical partitioning
• The list of specified columns (attributes) is kept in each tuple
• The other attributes in each tuple are discarded
• Example: To list each employee’s first and last name and salary, the
following is used:
LNAME, FNAME,SALARY(EMPLOYEE)
Examples of applying SELECT and PROJECT
operations
Example-2:
Select all the student of Team A
Example-2:
Select all the students of department ECE whose fees is greater
than equal to 10000 and belongs to Team other than A.
Relational Algebra Expressions
• We may want to apply several relational algebra operations one after
the other
• Either we can write the operations as a single relational algebra expression
by nesting the operations, or
• We can apply one operation at a time and create intermediate result
relations
• In the latter case, we must give names to the relations that hold
the intermediate results
Single expression versus sequence of
relational operations: Example
• To retrieve the first name, last name, and salary of all employees who
work in department number 5, we must apply a select and a project
operation
• We can write a single relational algebra expression as follows:
• FNAME, LNAME, SALARY( DNO=5(EMPLOYEE))
• OR We can explicitly show the sequence of operations, giving a name
to each intermediate relation:
• DEP5_EMPS   DNO=5(EMPLOYEE)
• RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)
Unary Relational Operations: RENAME
• The RENAME operator is denoted by  (rho)
• In some cases, we may want to rename the attributes of a relation or
the relation name or both
• Useful when a query requires multiple operations
• Necessary in some cases (see JOIN operation later)
• If we write:
• RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)
• RESULT will have the same attribute names as DEP5_EMPS (same
attributes as EMPLOYEE)
• If we write:
• RESULT (F, M, L, S, B, A, SX, SAL, SU, DNO)(DEP5_EMPS)
• The 10 attributes of DEP5_EMPS are renamed to F, M, L, S, B, A,
SX, SAL, SU, DNO, respectively in RESULT relation (renamed from
DEP5_EMPS)
• Note: the  symbol is an assignment operator
TEMP   DNO=5 (EMPLOYEE)
R(First_name, Last_name, Salary)   Fname, Lname, Salary (TEMP)
 Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: UNION
• Binary operation, denoted by 
• The result of R  S, is a relation that includes all tuples
that are either in R or in S or in both R and S
• Duplicate tuples are eliminated
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type
compatible” (or UNION compatible)
• R and S must have same number of attributes
• Each pair of corresponding attributes must be type
compatible (have same or compatible domains)
Example:To retrieve the social security numbers of all employees who either
work in department 5 (RESULT1 below) or directly supervise an employee who
works in department 5 (RESULT2)
• We can use the UNION operation as follows:
DEP5_EMPS  DNO=5 (EMPLOYEE)
RESULT1   SSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT2(SSN)  SUPERSSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT  RESULT1  RESULT2
• The union operation produces the tuples that are in either RESULT1 or RESULT2 or both
Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: INTERSECTION
• INTERSECTION is denoted by 
• The result of the operation R  S, is a relation that includes all tuples
that are in both R and S
• The attribute names in the result will be the same as the attribute names in R
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type compatible”
Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: SET DIFFERENCE
• SET DIFFERENCE (also called MINUS or EXCEPT) is denoted by –
• The result of R – S, is a relation that includes all tuples that are in R
but not in S
• The attribute names in the result will be the same as the attribute names in R
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type compatible”
Example to
illustrate the result
of UNION,
INTERSECT, and
DIFFERENCE
Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT
• CARTESIAN (or CROSS) PRODUCT Operation
• This operation is used to combine tuples from two relations in a
combinatorial fashion.
• Denoted by R(A1, A2, . . ., An) x S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm)
• The resulting relation state has one tuple for each combination of tuples—
one from R and one from S.
• The two operands do NOT have to be "type compatible”
• Generally, CROSS PRODUCT is not a meaningful operation
• Can become meaningful when followed by other operations
 Quiz 1:

a) c)

b) d)
Quiz 2:
The ___________ operation, denoted by −, allows us to
find tuples that are in one relation but are not in another.

a)
c)

b) d)
Extra reading
• https://www.guru99.com/relational-algebra-dbms.html

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dbms/pdf/relational_algebra.pdf