Relational Calculus

CS 186, Spring 2007, Lecture 6

R&G, Chapter 4
Mary Roth

We will occasionally use this
arrow notation unless there
is danger of no confusion.
Ronald Graham
Elements of Ramsey Theory


Administrivia
Homework 1 due in 1 week
Thursday, Feb 8 10 p.m.

New syllabus on web site

Questions?




Review
Database Systems have both theory and practice
Its a systems course, so we are heavy on the
practice
But our practice has to have theory to back it up 8-)
so we will be looking at both of them in parallel


Review: Where have we been?
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Practice Theory
Lecture 2
Relational Algebra
Relational Model
Lecture 5
Lectures 3 &4


Review: Where have we been?
Where are we going next?
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Practice Theory
Lecture 2
Relational Algebra
Relational Model
Lecture 5
Lectures 3 &4
Relational Calculus
Today


Where are we going next?
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Practice
SQL
On Deck:
Practical
ways of
evaluating
SQL


Review Why do we need Query
Languages anyway?
Two key advantages
Less work for user asking query
More opportunities for optimization

Relational Algebra
Theoretical foundation for SQL
Higher level than programming language
but still must specify steps to get desired result

Relational Calculus
Formal foundation for Query-by-Example
A first-order logic description of desired result
Only specify desired result, not how to get it


Additional operations:
Intersection ()
Join ( )
Division ( / )
Relational Algebra Review
sid sname rating age
22 dustin 7 45.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
58 rusty 10 35.0

bid bname color
101 Interlake Blue
102 Interlake Red
103 Clipper Green
104 Marine Red
sid bid day
22 101 10/10/96
58 103 11/12/96
Reserves Sailors Boats
Basic operations:
Selection ( )
Projection ( )
Cross-product ( )
Set-difference ( )
Union ( )

:tuples in both relations.
:like but only keep tuples where common fields are equal.
:tuples from relation 1 with matches in relation 2

: gives a subset of rows.
: deletes unwanted columns.
: combine two relations.
: tuples in relation 1, but not 2
: tuples in relation 1 and 2.
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Prediction: These
relational operators
are going to look
hauntingly familiar
when we get to
them!


Additional operations:
Intersection ()
Join ( )
Division ( / )
Relational Algebra Review
sid sname rating age
22 dustin 7 45.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
58 rusty 10 35.0

bid bname color
101 Interlake Blue
102 Interlake Red
103 Clipper Green
104 Marine Red
sid bid day
22 101 10/10/96
58 103 11/12/96
Reserves Sailors Boats
Basic operations:
Selection ( )
Projection ( )
Cross-product ( )
Set-difference ( )
Union ( )
Find names of sailors whove reserved a green boat

(
color=Green
Boats) ( Sailors)

(
sname
)
( Reserves)


Relational Algebra Review
sid sname rating age
22 dustin 7 45.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
58 rusty 10 35.0

bid bname color
101 Interlake Blue
102 Interlake Red
103 Clipper Green
104 Marine Red
sid bid day
22 101 10/10/96
58 103 11/12/96
Reserves Sailors Boats
Find names of sailors whove reserved a green boat
Given the previous algebra, a query optimizer would replace it with this!

(
color=Green
Boats)
( Sailors)

(
sname
)
( Reserves)

(
bid
)

(
sid
)
Or better yet:


Intermission
Some algebra exercises for you to practice with are out
on the class web site
Algebra and calculus exercises make for good exam
questions!


Today: Relational Calculus
High-level, first-order logic description
A formal definition of what you want from the database

e.g. English:
Find all sailors with a rating above 7

In Calculus:
{S |S e Sailors . S.rating > 7}
From all that is, find me the set of things that are tuples in the Sailors
relation and whose rating field is greater than 7.

Two flavors:
Tuple relational calculus (TRC) (Like SQL)
Domain relational calculus (DRC) (Like QBE)


Relational Calculus Building Blocks
Variables
TRC: Variables are bound to tuples.
DRC: Variables are bound to domain elements (= column values)
Constants
7, Foo, 3.14159, etc.
Comparison operators
=, <>, <, >, etc.
Logical connectives
- not
. and
v - or
- implies
e - is a member of
Quantifiers
X(p(X)): For every X, p(X) must be true
-X(p(X)): There exists at least one X such that p(X) is true


Relational Calculus
English example: Find all sailors with a rating above 7
Tuple R.C.:
{S |S eSailors . S.rating > 7}

From all that is, find me the set of things that are tuples in the Sailors
relation and whose rating field is greater than 7.

Domain R.C.:
{<S,N,R,A>| <S,N,R,A> eSailors . R > 7}

From all that is, find me column values S, N, R, and A, where S is an
integer, N is a string, R is an integer, A is a floating point number,
such that <S, N, R, A> is a tuple in the Sailors relation and R is
greater than 7.
sid sname rating age
28 yuppy 9 35.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
44 guppy 5 35.0
58 rusty 10 35.0


Tuple Relational Calculus
Query form: {T | p(T)}
T is a tuple and p(T) denotes a formula in which tuple
variable T appears.

Answer:
set of all tuples T for which the formula p(T) evaluates to
true.

Formula is recursively defined:
Atomic formulas get tuples from relations or compare
values
Formulas built from other formulas using logical operators.


An atomic formula is one of the following:
R e Rel
R.a op S.b
R.a op constant, where
op is one of

A formula can be:
an atomic formula
where p and q are formulas
where variable R is a tuple variable
where variable R is a tuple variable
TRC Formulas
< > = s > = , , , , ,
. v p p q p q , ,
) ) ( ( R p R -
) ) ( ( R p R


Free and Bound Variables
The use of quantifiers X and -X in a formula is said to
bind X in the formula.
A variable that is not bound is free.

Important restriction
{T | p(T)}
The variable T that appears to the left of `| must be
the only free variable in the formula p(T).
In other words, all other tuple variables must be bound
using a quantifier.



Use of (For every)
x (P(x)):
only true if P(x) is true for every x in the universe:
e.g. x ((x.color = Red)
means everything that exists is red

Usually we are less grandiose in our assertions:
x ( (x e Boats) (x.color = Red)
is a logical implication
a b means that if a is true, b must be true
a b is the same as a v b


a b is the same as a v b

If a is true, b must be
true!
If a is true and b is
false, the expression
evaluates to false.
If a is not true, we dont
care about b
The expression is
always true.
a
T
F
T F
b
T
T T
F


Quantifier Shortcuts
x ((x e Boats) (x.color = Red))
For every x in the Boats relation, the color must be Red.
Can also be written as:
x e Boats(x.color = Red)

-x ( (x e Boats) . (x.color = Red))
There exists a tuple x in the Boats relation whose
color is Red.
Can also be written as:
-x e Boats (x.color = Red)


Selection and Projection
Selection
Find all sailors with rating above 8
{S |S eSailors . S.rating > 8}
{S | -S1 eSailors(S1.rating > 8
. S.sname = S1.sname
. S.age = S1.age)}
S is a tuple variable of 2 fields (i.e. {S} is a projection of Sailors)
sid sname rating age
28 yuppy 9 35.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
44 guppy 5 35.0
58 rusty 10 35.0
sname age
Projection
Find names and ages of sailors with rating above 8.
S
S1
yuppy 35.0
S1
S1
S1
S rusty 35.0


Note the use of - to find a tuple in Reserves that `joins
with the Sailors tuple under consideration.
{S | SeSailors . S.rating > 7 .
-R(ReReserves . R.sid = S.sid
. R.bid = 103)}
Joins
Find sailors rated > 7 whove reserved
boat #103
sid sname rating age
22 dustin 7 45.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
58 rusty 10 35.0

sid bid day
22 101 10/10/96
58 103 11/12/96
S
S
S
R
R
What if there was another tuple {58, 103, 12/13/96} in the
Reserves relation?


Joins (continued)
Notice how the parentheses control the scope of each quantifiers binding.
{S | SeSailors . S.rating > 7 .
-R(ReReserves . R.sid = S.sid
. -B(BeBoats . B.bid = R.bid
. B.color = red))}
Find sailors rated > 7 whove reserved a red boat
What does this expression compute?


Division
Find all sailors S such that
A value x in A is disqualified if by attaching a y value from B, we obtain an xy
tuple that is not in A. (e.g: only give me A tuples that have a match in B.
{S | SeSailors .
BeBoats (-ReReserves
(S.sid = R.sid
. B.bid = R.bid))}
e.g. Find sailors whove reserved all boats:
Recall the algebra expression A/B
In calculus, use the operator:
For all tuples B in Boats
There is at least one tuple in Reserves
showing that sailor S has reserved B.


More Calculus exercises on the web site


Unsafe Queries, Expressive Power
- syntactically correct calculus queries that have an
infinite number of answers! These are unsafe queries.
e.g.,

Solution???? Dont do that!

Expressive Power (Theorem due to Codd):
Every query that can be expressed in relational algebra
can be expressed as a safe query in DRC / TRC; the
converse is also true.

Relational Completeness: Query languages (e.g., SQL)
can express every query that is expressible in relational
algebra/calculus. (actually, SQL is more powerful, as we
will see)

S|SeSailors
|
\


|
.
|
|






`

)



Relational Completeness means
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Practice Theory
Relational Algebra
Relational Model
Relational Calculus


Now we can study SQL!
Query Optimization
and Execution
Relational Operators
Files and Access Methods
Buffer Management
Disk Space Management
DB
Practice
SQL


Summary
The relational model has rigorously defined query languages
that are simple and powerful.
Algebra and safe calculus have same expressive power
Relational algebra is more operational
useful as internal representation for query evaluation plans.
theyll be baa-aack.
Relational calculus is more declarative
users define queries in terms of what they want, not in
terms of how to compute it.
Almost every query can be expressed several ways
and thats what makes query optimization fun!